One of the big trends to have swept the city these days is ramen. While I do love a good ramen dish, I'm not obsessive about it like many people. But what I am obsessive about is uni and Ju-Men Ramen created a dish that marries the two together. This dish got a lot of buzz in the past year but I never felt like trekking up and waiting in line for it. Luckily, I've had some down time at work lately, so figured now was the right time to check it out.
I got there at around 1pm on a Friday and while it wasn't packed at all, it was pleasantly full of people. I sat at the bar and glanced at the menu even though I pretty much knew what I was going to order. If you're not in the mood for uni ramen, they do have a menu of traditional ramens and other small bites like pork buns and chicken wings. I got the yellowtail ceviche ($11) to start and of course the uni mushroom ramen ($18) as my main. Similar to how I felt about the ceviche at Llama Inn - this dish wasn't really a ceviche as it was a carpaccio. It was large but thin slices of yellowtail with pickled mango, kimchi jus for some heat and fried dumpling skin on top for crunch. A very pleasant dish for sure but again, it's not a ceviche in my mind because there wasn't any acidity or citrus to the dish. But I wasn't here for the appetizers - I was here for the famous uni mushroom ramen. I knew going in that it was a dry ramen - meaning there is no broth, so don't get caught off guard when ordering it. The ramen came out and it had lovely presentation with chunks of uni sitting right on top of it. The dish is served with roasted pancetta, porcini butter, truffle oil, fried shallots, scallion and lots of parmesan cheese - so yeah, it sounds nothing like ramen at all. The noodles were nice and chewy and the pancetta added a nice smoke to it - it honestly tasted more like a carbonara dish than a Japanese noodle dish. The uni was a nice addition but with all the other strong flavors to the dish (truffle and butter) it was hard to really taste the uni.
Overall, I'm really glad I tried it but I'm not sure if I would necessarily go running back, especially at $18 a pop. Spending over $30 for lunch on 2 dishes is a bit much but it was worth a try at least once here but I can see this trendy dish easily being overtaken by another trend really quickly. Total bill: $37.25 with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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