Food - Use your noodle: An Atlanta ramen obsession

Four pounds of chicken. Five pounds of meaty pork bones. Two stiff sheets of kombu. Two cups of dried shiitake mushrooms. A pound of Benton’s bacon. Massive hunks of roasted pork shoulder and pork belly. Countless other ingredients and 12 hours on my feet.

Obsession can make you do crazy things — like spending an entire day preparing a single dish that you know will never live up to your expectations. However, that’s precisely what I did a few weeks ago. I was chasing the elusive magic that is ramen.

I’m not referring to the prepackaged blocks of preservatives and sodium we all ate during college. Instead, I was aiming for the slow-cooked, complex, silky broth, crinkly noodles, delicate slices of pork, tangled slices of bamboo shoots, a piece of nori and sharp pops of fresh green onion. It’s not simply a meal, it’s something to get lost in.

Ramen is a dish so revered in Japan that there is a museum dedicated to its existence. Movie-making ramen-otakus (a Japanese word to describe someone with a particular obsessive interest) have even made the soup a central character in cult classics Tampopo and The Ramen Girl. The obsession has crossed oceans and landed with a slurp on U.S. soil. Ramen is no longer just an old-world dish made by masters. It’s a bona fide phenomenon.

My at-home ramen endeavor was inspired by chef David Chang’s Momofuku cookbook. Each time I passed the book as it collected dust on my shelf, I could swear Chang himself was daring me to try the recipe for his famed Momofuku ramen — a dish that, without fail, is the first thing I eat every time I visit New York. After announcing my plans to attempt the 18-page recipe, my friends, even those who would benefit from the spoils of my labor, told me I was crazy. Still, it was something I had to do. As expected — and despite my steadfast adherence to the recipe, procurement of great ingredients and diligent broth baby-sitting — I’m ashamed to report my at-home version did not resemble Chang’s or any other (good) ramen I’d ever eaten. I couldn’t help but feel like Brittany Murphy’s character in The Ramen Girl. After making the ramen exactly as she has learned, her master tells her it’s still not right. With tears forming in her eyes, she pleads with her master to tell her what she has done wrong and he gruffly gives her the reason: “No spirit.” Perhaps that was my missing ingredient.

As tiring and frustrating as the process was, it intensified my appreciation for those Atlanta restaurants that make ramen a menu priority — something few chefs do because of the dish’s infamous difficulty. Whether it’s a mythical off-menu ramen at Karaoke Melody that everyone talks about, but no one has ever really had, or the surprising occasional special at the Porter Beer Bar — chef/owner Nick Rutherford is purportedly a fellow ramen-otaku — ramen has gained a foothold in Atlanta’s culinary landscape.

Traditionally, ramen is served at ramen-yas — restaurants that exclusively serve ramen. However, many Japanese restaurants sometimes add it to their existing menu. The best ramen in Atlanta is at a modest yakitori restaurant, Yakitori Jinbei. The man behind the unparalleled ramen, chef/owner Takashi Osawa, passed away in 2009. However, he taught his successor well as each soothing and creamy sip of the tonkotsu (pork bone) ramen bares a great resemblance to the gorgeous broths Osawa executed. No other Atlanta tonkotsu broth compares. If we are going in order of greatness, the body of the tonkotsu broth (my litmus test broth because it is the most difficult to prepare) at Haru Ichiban is a close second to Jinbei. And the enormous (by relative standards) list of options afford the diner a bit of creativity in designing your own soup. You can pretty much build your dream bowl of ramen no matter if you want a simple shoyu (soy) broth with little in it or a full-blown milky tonkotsu broth dotted with chunks of Japanese-style fried chicken. This place is pure win.

Another trend we’re seeing is Korean-owned ramen-yas, such as Umaido and the newly opened Raku Tonkatsu + Ramen (2550 Pleasant Hill Road, Suite 112, Duluth, 770-476-1212). Umaido makes everything from scratch, including the noodles. But they’re too thin and lack the requisite curl and chew that makes ramen the textural smack down it should be. The broth is also too watery, although the restaurant does offer an almost comically spicy version that challenges even the toughest spice fiends.

Raku is a new endeavor from the folks behind the Korean barbecue gluttony that is Honey Pig. Raku only serves dumplings, tonkatsu (fried pork) and a bunch of different ramen dishes. While the focus is appreciated, all of the ramen versions lack any discernible depth of flavor. Let’s hope it gets better with time.

Any Japanese pub (izakaya) worth its sake will have a ramen on the menu and one of my favorites is at Shoya Izakaya. Shoya serves five types of ramen with the occasional seasonal specialty. I, of course, order the excellent tonkotsu ramen almost exclusively, but the Tan Tan ramen (a soy and chicken-based broth) is also worthy for its intense chicken notes mingled with spicy heat. Miso Izakaya takes a page from Holeman & Finch Public House’s playbook by offering a ramen special that is only available from 10 p.m. until midnight.

A fellow ramen-otaku recently remarked how shocked (and thankful) he is with how much ramen has shown up in Atlanta in recent years. It’s true. No matter where you live, there’s a good bowl of ramen somewhere nearby. Which is a blessing, because if we had to make our own we’d all be crying like the Ramen Girl.

More ramen options

Bishoku: The kitchen here doctors up an existing ramen base with fresher ingredients to create a respectable — if not sometimes too salty — bowl of soup.

Blue Fin Sushi: A handful of ramen choices alongside its various udon and soba soups.

Waraku: (3131 Lawrenceville Suwanee Road, Suwanee, 678-889-4188) This small Japanese restaurant in Suwanee frequented by a mostly Japanese clientele serves a ramen that’s not worth the trip, but certainly welcome if you live nearby.

Taka: Taka serves both shoya and tonkotsu ramen on its lunch menu with what may be the best noodles in town — compact with lots of bite.