Once relegated to 99¢ college dinners — and usually overlooked at sushi restaurants — ramen has really blown up. Remember the insanity at the Ramen Street festival last year? Piggybacking on this trend, Tokyo’s renowned Mensho Ramen plans to open a restaurant in San Francisco (its first outpost in the US), a move guaranteed to generate outrageous lines.
In Tokyo, a city with an abundance of ramen, chef Tomoharu Shono’s Mensho regularly tops lists of the best ramen restaurants. The new SF outlet, at 676 Geary in the Tenderloin, will be called Mensho Tokyo, and it’ll rub shoulders with other hip neighborhood spots such as Jones and Bourbon & Branch.
Mensho’s menu is written entirely in Japanese, but the accompanying photos look delicious. Google Translate (what would I do without you, Google?) tells me that their regular offerings feature pork bone soup stewed over several days, plum noodles, lamb, seafood, and more. According to Time Out Tokyo, “eternally popular” Mensho (also known as Menya Shono) “mixes things up with innovative toppings and flavors practically every month. Past favorites include pasta-like veggie tsukemen, while the topping selection has seen guest appearances by tomatoes, zucchini, and yams.” Inside Scoop reports that the San Francisco outpost will consist of all the standard menu items, plus some small plates exclusive to the location.
Ramen wasn’t always so glamorous. As Ramen Yokocho Association director Yoshimasa Kasai told The Bold Italic last fall, the dish became popular with Japanese families during the postwar reconstruction period because it was inexpensive and filling. Now, ramen has joined the ranks of other lowbrow-made-highbrow foods including toast, mac and cheese, and bacon. Sure, it’s an easy-to-dismiss trendy food, but in my opinion, ramen’s success is a good thing. It’s hard to top housemade noodles and expertly brewed broth, all topped with a gooey egg.
If you want to torture yourself with some food porn before Mensho comes Bayside, check out their Instagram.
h/t Inside Scoop; photo courtesy of Menya Shono/Instagram
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