Dining review: Tonbo Ramen offers modern take on two traditional concepts
In Japan, ramen is such a popular fast-food option that shops (including chain restaurants, some with hundreds of locations) can be found on practically every street corner.
In this case “fast food” doesn’t necessarily mean mass-produced mediocrity from a traditional fast-food chain. At many independent shops, called ramen-ya, and even some of the chains, the bowls are filled with long-simmered broths and quality ingredients.
The izakaya is an utterly different kind of establishment, where drinks (traditionally sake, but increasingly beer and other tipples) and small plates are enjoyed at a leisurely pace. Think tapas bar meets speakeasy, Japanese-style.
If the two concepts strike you as unlikely candidates for combining in a single restaurant, it doesn’t take long to dispel that notion. Google “ramen shop” and “izakaya” in the same search bar, and you’ll turn up an eye-opening number of these two-in-one establishments (among them Dashi in Durham) that have sprung up all over the country in recent years.
Now we can add Tonbo Ramen to the list. Tonbo, the latest venture of Plaza Associates, the group that owns three area Kanki restaurants, opened in February in a renovated century-old building that was once home to a tailor shop. Transforming the space into a restaurant with an urban-rustic decor while preserving elements of the historic building’s character, the owners have set a mood that’s at once austere and cozy — just right for this distinctly American take on Japanese culture.
The fact that the restaurant occupies two floors is a bonus, allowing each concept — downstairs ramen bar and upstairs izakaya — to retain the character of the genre that inspired it.
Walk into the ramen shop and your eye is drawn to the open kitchen, where clouds of steam billow up from 60-gallon kettles. In those kettles are the classic broths that are the liquid foundation for traditional variations on the ramen theme. You might even call them elixirs, as their names are like incantations in a magic spell: tonkotsu, shio, shoyu, miso.
Each of these invokes its own kind of magic. Tonkotsu — made by simmering pork bones for 20 hours or more to create a rich broth with a bewitching milky color and a deeply satisfying, grease-slicked mouth feel — is, for my money, the master spell.
Tonbo’s rendition is so rich, in fact, that when I first tasted it, I thought it was a little too salty. It quickly grew on me, however, either because my palate adapted or because the flavor mellowed as the noodles (which are made by Sun Noodle, supplier of the renowned Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York) absorbed some of the broth.
At the other end of the spectrum, there’s the clean salinity of shio — the oldest and most basic of ramen styles, whose very name means “salt.” In between, there’s the sweet umami of miso, and the comfortingly familiar soy sauce undertones of shoyu.
Each broth style comes with a default combination of toppings. My tonkotsu came with Berkshire Kurobuta pork belly, house-made shrimp and pork dumplings, a soy-marinated soft egg, and house-pickled red onions and scallions, with a garnishing sheet of nori and a sprinkling of sesame garlic oil. A list of optional add-ons allows you to customize your bowl — grilled avocado, if you’re feeling adventurous, and by all means some of those house-made dumplings if they’re not included by default.
The ramen bar also offers a couple of not-strictly-traditional variations (vegetarian and seafood), and a no-broth ramen dish called mazemen (whose name means “mixed ramen,” and also tells you how to eat it: just toss all those artfully assembled ingredients together like a salad and dig in).
Japanese-style buns round out the ramen bar’s authentically streamlined menu. Pork belly, shrimp and vegetarian — all worthy in their own right — are so generously filled that you can practice your chopsticks skills picking up the morsels that fall out onto the plate.
You’ll find more options upstairs, where, in addition to the ramen bar offering, an izakaya menu of small plates is designed to go with Tonbo’s sake flights, craft beers and cocktails with names like Shiso-Fine and Yuzu Drop It.
The spring mix salad, dressed in a light honey ginger dressing and topped with bamboo skewers of grilled shrimp and a nest of fried potato threads, should prime your palate for more skewered nibbles — which you’ll find under the Yakimono heading. Eggplant, pork belly and chicken thigh are sure crowd-pleasers on a short but varied list that runs the gamut from shiitake to chicken gizzards.
Karaage, an izakaya classic featuring bite-size chunks of soy-marinated chicken fried in a light potato starch batter, is another winner. So are grilled shishito peppers, their blistery skins glistening with sesame garlic oil beneath a shower of bonito flakes. And if your sweet tooth is craving something to go with that dessert cocktail, look no further than house-made mochi green tea “doughnuts.”
As a tribute to the history of the building that is now home to Tonbo Ramen, the owners refurbished the original door to the tailor shop, as well as that of a second-floor dentist, and incorporated them into the decor. At first the doors may strike you as out of place, but as you begin to appreciate the combination of ramen bar and izakaya under one roof — a modern take on two traditional concepts — the doors make perfect sense. Like the tonkotsu broth, they grow on you.
Tonbo Ramen
211 S. Wilmington St., Raleigh
919-977-3625
Cuisine: Japanese
Rating: 3 1/2 stars
Prices: $
Atmosphere: urban-rustic
Noise level: low to moderate
Service: welcoming, and for the most part attentive
Recommended: ramen, buns, spring mix salad, yakimono (especially eggplant, pork belly and chicken thigh), karaage, grilled shishito peppers
Open: Lunch and dinner daily (Izakaya opens Monday-Thursday at 4 p.m., Friday-Sunday at 11:30 a.m.)
Reservations: not accepted
Other: full bar; accommodates children; modest vegetarian selection; parking on street and in Moore Square deck.
The N&O’s critic dines anonymously; the newspaper pays for all meals. We rank restaurants in five categories: 5 stars: Extraordinary. 4 stars: Excellent. 3 stars: Above average. 2 stars: Average. 1 star: Fair.
The dollar signs defined: $ Entrees average less than $10. $ Entrees $11 to $20. $$ Entrees $21 to $30. $$ Entrees more than $30.
This story was originally published August 22, 2018 at 5:44 PM with the headline "Dining review: Tonbo Ramen offers modern take on two traditional concepts."