On any given day you wander into Tokyo Ramen, you may hear a whump. Followed by another. And another. This will assure you that, if you order ramen, your noodles will be fresh, hand-pulled, and whumped by the ramen maker on the premises right before your eyes.
Ramen noodles originated in China but have been popularized by the Japanese. These thin wheat noodles gained popularity in the English lexicon when some enterprising soul figured out a way to reconstitute dry ramen in a Styrofoam cup. However, traditional ramen is far from instant, sometimes taking a whole day to make. Although ramen can be served by itself, it is usually found bathing in a broth made from pork bones (tonkatsu) or flavored with miso or shoyu (soy sauce). Tokyo Ramen offers all of these soup bases with its ramen ($7). Each steaming bowl also includes a sprinkling of vegetables and a boiled egg. You can liven things up with beef brisket, pork ribs, or barbecued eel.
The beef brisket ramen has a few dense medallions of brisket that are chewy but palatable. The crinkly ramen is perfectly al dente. A briny broth is needed to make the noodles sing, and here, the shoyu broth does just that. The miso broth is also good; try it second. Minor missteps happen, however. The vegetables were fresh but sparse, and the boiled egg was salty and tough.
The special tear noodles are flat and irregularly shaped from being "torn" like bits of paper ($4.50). They have a slippery, soft feel in contrast to the "crunchiness" of ramen.
For a change of pace, there are the lotus leaves meals, which come wrapped in a wet lotus leaf-like a bundle of laundry. The curry chicken meal starts with a generous base of rice covered with a mild curry of chicken, carrots, and onion ($7). Small piles of spinach and shredded omelet add interest. While the chicken is tender, be mindful of the shards of bones. The lotus imparts a smoky flavor to the whole dish.
If a big bowl of noodles or a bundle of laundry isn't enough to stay your hunger pangs, several appetizers are there to help, like gyoza (fried dumplings); a California roll; or pao-bing, fried pancakes with a thin layer of banana, corn, pineapple, or coconut. Pao-bing is best eaten right away, when the hot dough makes the greasiness forgivable ($4.25).
If it's ramen you want, head for Tokyo Ramen and listen for the sounds of the whumps.