Battle of Seattle Ramen Restaurants

posted on : March 26, 2018 posted by : seattleunexplored@gmail.com 0 Comment

Battle of Seattle Ramen Restaurants (or The Seattle Ramen March Madness Tournament)

My recollection of Seattle Ramen History

We love ramen!! So we’ve kept a close eye on how ramen has evolved and became more of a Seattle staple in the last few years. Thank you, God!

When I first moved to Seattle, I was shocked that there weren’t any ramen shops to speak of. Coming from Southern California, which has a plethora of ramen shops, I thought that ramen would be the perfect meal for the cold Seattle weather. I always told my friends that if I had an entrepreneurial spirit and a good ramen broth recipe, that would be the business I’d open in Seattle. I had neither, so it never happened. But I thought whoever did, would make money hand over fist.

This is my recollection of ramen shops in Seattle. I think at the time Tsukushinbo was the only one that had ramen and it was only on Fridays, which I believe is still their practice today. Then Samurai Ramen opened in the International District in 2007 and Aloha Ramen opened in Greenwood in 2009. In 2012, Yoroshiku opened, although they’re not strictly a ramen place. Around the same time Ramen Man opened down the street in Wallingford. The real influx of Japanese ramen chains opening up branches in Seattle happened with Kukai Ramen(now Kizuki) in 2014. This is when the ramen scene in Seattle finally exploded with branches from Japan ramen shops and local ramen places opening seemingly every week –Ooink, Betsutenjin, Teinei, Ramen Danbo, Hokkaido Ramen Santouka , Tentenyu, Arashi Ramen.

Choosing the Field in Our Seattle Ramen March Madness

With the NCAA Tournament going on, I thought it be fun to have a Seattle Ramen Battle tournament style. So what’s the best way to rate all the ramen places? We knew we would not rate these places on atmosphere of the restaurants since ramen in Japan is basically eaten at outdoor stalls or little hole in the wall places. We thought it was more fair to compare apples to apples. So we had three choices. Most ramen places have a shio(salt) based, a shoyu(soy sauce) based and miso(fermented soy bean) based broth. Problem was some places didn’t have any of these common ramen broths. For example Tentenyu doesn’t have a simple shio, shoyu or miso ramen. In the end, we just picked what ramen bowl we wanted and based our ratings on what we ordered. I did try to ask each server what was their most popular ramen and ordered that.

Better Luck Next Year

These are Ramen Shops that did not make the field of 8 for various reasons. Like the NCAA Tournament, there are some teams that just don’t make the cut. Could be due to not enough quality wins ramen dishes, strength of schedule broth, not enough film time to properly evaluate or just stronger competition. Maybe next year, fellas.

Tsukushinbo(International District)-Definitely tournament worthy, but only serves ramen on Friday. This is the equivalent of why pitchers shouldn’t be MVPs since they only pitch every 5 days.
Yoroshiku(Wallingford)-Also tournament worthy, but they really are a Japanese restaurant that happens to serve really good ramen.
Betsutenjin(Capitol Hill)-Haven’t made in there yet.
Nuna Ramen(Fremont)
Samurai Noodle(University and ID)
Kiki Ramen(SLU)
Teinei(SLU)
Any Ramen Place on the East Side-Too far. Sorry

This Year’s Participants in the Seattle Ramen March Madness

West Region-Arashi Ramen(Ballard) vs Ramen Man(Wallingford)

Out of the West Region comes Arashi Ramen from Ballard, known for it’s spicy miso tonkatsu ramen. They’ve dominated the Ballard neighborhood for close to 4 years. No new ramen shop dare enter their domain. They will match up with Ramen Man out of Wallingford. We all know old veteran Ramen Man will be tough to beat with it’s unlimited boiled eggs. Their campus is small but their Original Tori Paitan Ramen is mighty.

2. North Region–Aloha Ramen(Lake City) vs Santouka Ramen(University District)

The old stalwart meets the new kid on the block. Aloha Ramen is formerly out of Greenwood, but transferred to Lake City. They’ve been around since 2009 and have a wicked combo of garlic fried rice and their Katsu Tan Ramen. Aloha hopes to beat the Moana out of Santouka, home of the powerful Tsukemen. Santouka has been in Seattle for less than a year, so you know they’ve had a strong season to make the field with such a limited resume. Their dinner sets and membership perks make this Rookie of the Year a possible MVP candidate.

3. Capitol Hill Region #1– Kizuki Ramen vs Tentenyu Ramen

Kizuki Ramen formerly known as Kukai, which means “crap” in Hawaiian, has been multiplying all over Seattle and Bellevue trying to overpower the competition by kicking the “kukai” out them through pure number of locations. Facing Kizuki in the Capitol Hill Region #1 is Tentenyu, another newcomer to Seattle, but honing it’s skills in Kyoto for over 40 years. They keep their style of play simple-only 4 bowls of ramen, but they have a secret weapon off the bench, black garlic oil! They are hoping to beat Kizuki by tenten points.

4. Capitol Hill Region #2–Ramen Danbo vs Ooink

Closing out the field are two more competitors from Capitol Hill. Yet another newcomer to the field, Ramen Danbo is not only known for it’s Tonkatsu Broth Ramen, but also it’s aresnal of weapons(choices of noodles thickness, noodle firmness, broth thickness, lard amount and spicy factor). Ramen Danbo hopes to go Rambo on Ooink. Ooink –Don’t let the looks of their campus fool you. This could be the Cinderella story of the tournament. Their unconventional style might be enough to trip up their opponent. Spicy reigns supreme on this menu, but their Kotteri Ramen might be their best player. Ooink hopes to go hog-wild on Ramen Danbo.

We’re not going to go into a lot of detail why one ramen won over the other, but suffice to say it can be chalked up to simply, “we just liked one ramen over the other”.

Without further ado, here are the winners round by round: