Slurp, sip, repeat: 6 new South Florida ramen restaurants to beat any cold snap
Even in South Florida’s 60-degree cold snaps, slurping a savory bowl of ramen feels like a sweater for your soul.
Naturally this warrants a trip to Shimuja in Southwest Ranches, whose deeply rich and satisfying broths make it the gold standard of South Florida ramen. A fine alternative is Ramen 369 in Delray Beach, a tiny izakaya that’s so authentic its menu is listed next to the cattle breeding paperwork.
But as more Japanese ramen restaurants noodle their way into Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, there’s good reason to experiment with something new. Here are six recently opened eateries and the local chefs morphing this street-food staple into an art form.
Senbazuru (inside Sistrunk Marketplace)
115 NW Sixth St., Fort Lauderdale; 754-312-0242, SenbazuruMiami.com
The marriage of Spanish and Japanese street food feels almost like a shotgun wedding at Adriana Yoshii’s Asian tapas stall, which puts international bites (like Spanish patatas bravas and Japanese octopus balls) into bento boxes. But the mashup works here at Fort Lauderdale’s new Sistrunk Marketplace food hall, where different types of cuisine beckon every few feet. Senbazuru has two ramen bowls but its tonkatsu is worth your immediate attention. A blend of rich, silky pork and chicken broth, it includes chashu pork belly and thick, wavy noodles, Spanish spices, a narutomaki fish cake and a soy-seasoned half-boiled egg.
Kaminari Ramen food truck
Various venues in Broward and Palm Beach; weekly schedule posted on Facebook, Instagram
Takeshi Kamioka’s roving ramen wagon, also a fan of Mexican-Asian mashups, has brought chashu pork-belly quesadillas and kimchi grilled-cheese sandwiches to the masses from Fort Lauderdale to Lake Worth. Kamioka, a former sushi chef at Nobu Miami at Eden Roc, and his girlfriend, Melody Navarette, bought their food trailer just before the pandemic and have popped up outside bars and craft brewery parking lots with onigiri (seaweed-wrapped rice balls) and bowls of tonkatsu. Their standout dish, the ramen burrito, stuffs into a tortilla all the ingredients that normally belong in a bowl: fried yakisoba noodles, napa cabbage, onion, carrots, bok choy and a marinated egg.
WoodOne Ramen
800 E. Hallandale Beach Blvd., #21, Hallandale Beach; 754-263-3084
What started as a tiny stand inside Hollywood’s Yellow Green Farmers Market has become home to some of South Florida’s best – and healthiest – ramen. Hui-Chuan Cheng and Wu Jing’s new WoodOne storefront innovates not with protein-based broths but with its vegan options, including a tomato-based curry that’s both tangy and fragrant. Its Sapporo miso broth, rich and oily, swaps chashu pork for tofu and ramen for vegan-friendly noodles, while its creamy vegetable broth tastes just as indulgent as most bone-based broths.
InRamen Asian Street Eatery
19 S. Pointe Drive, Dania Beach; 954-580-4299, InRamen.com
It’s reassuring to know a chain restaurant still hand-makes ingredients. InRamen, which began as a standalone eatery in South Miami, expanded to Dania Beach in October by chef-partners Yuanchi “Johnny HK” You and brothers David and Bill Jiang. Their vision of good ramen begins by turning wheat flour dough into springy, hand-pulled noodles. Fragrant tonkatsu broth is made by roasting pork femur and neck bones for 12 hours, while its short rib is roasted for eight hours overnight.
Papamigos food truck
44 NE First St., Pompano Beach; 954-729-9269, Papamigos.com
OK, we cheated here. Instead of noodle bowls Lauren Grosso and Brian Faeth’s food truck, parked at Dixie Highway and Atlantic Boulevard, serves Mexican-Asian fare (what its owners have dubbed “Mexi-crasian”) led by a bold-flavored mashup: birria ramen. Birria, in Mexican culture, is beef stew massaged with spices and cooked slowly. At Papamigos, birria is braised for six-to-eight hours in an abobo of rich complexity (cabbage, cilantro, dried chilies, onion, carrots, other spices), then piled into three handmade, deep-fried corn tortillas topped with melted mozzarella cheese. Those tacos can be ordered solo but we prefer them dipped in birria ramen, a cup of spicy, deep-red birria consom 1/4 u00e8 filled with wavy ramen noodles. When dunked in ramen, each taco bite is a savory flavor bomb. The food truck, which debuted in July, is a prelude to Papamigos’ brick-and-mortar eatery opening this year at 44 NE First St., a block north of its current location.
Momosan Ramen & Sake in Miami
415 NW 26th St., Miami; 305-851-8450; MomosanWynwood.com
Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto’s trendy noodle bar, which debuted Dec. 18, is meant for ramen-heads who crave premium meat cuts in their broth like A5 wagyu (the highest beef grade). Morimoto’s noodles are non-fried, springy and thin, which absorbs the broth less and avoids a soggy texture. We’re partial to his tantan ramen, whose coconut curry and miso broth complimented the rich flavor of miso ground pork and cilantro. The Food Network star’s street-food shop also dishes Peking duck tacos (a Masaharu specialty), spicy wontons, pork gyoza, sticky pork ribs, softshell crab baos and 20 varieties of sake.
