06/04/2026
Hello family we are very excited for this ramen popup! We will have a Tori Paitan it is basically a chicken version of Tonkotsu. Creamy chicken bone broth! I would usually do a double soup (animal, fish) but I specifically wanted to highlight chicken as mush as possible and use the whole animal out of respect for it, the meat to make chashu, the bones for soup and the fat for schmaltz (chicken oil) of course what’s chicken without egg? Ajitama (ramen egg) is one of my favorite toppings in the endless toppings of ramen. The tare I’m using is a Shio tare which consists of Hawaiian Alaea salt and shoyu among other ingredients. The other ramen I’m doing is a VEGAN RAMEN, so all you ramen heads out there tell you vegan homies to come through! Vegan ramen is a difficult one. A traditional vegan miso ramen is heavily influenced by Japanese Buddhist cuisine called Shojin Ryori. Instead of meat stocks, it relies on layers of umami from kombu, mushrooms, fermented soy products, and vegetables. Traditionally they don’t like using, scallions, garlic, ginger etc. because the flavors are too overpowering to your senses. There’s a whole list of what not to use. All the good stuff in my opinion, who doesn’t love mass quantities of garlic? 😭 so for this one I’m roasting some root vegetables and other light aromatics to make the soup stock to layer the umami flavors. Making a Shiro miso tare that will add funkiness and balance but not being too heavy. Roasting Maitake mushrooms as a topping along with some blanched bok choy. I love blanched bok choy, it’s slightly bitter and I want that crunch! I’m dashing a little of my Karashibi Green spice on top not to be spicy but I want it to awaken your senses with the spice from my dried young green hybrid chilis and the green Sichuan pepper corns. I think it will be a very nice balance of sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami. Which is the 5 flavors Buddhists have when they eat Shojin Ryori. I wanted the vegan ramen to be well balanced as well and not over power each ingredient. I hope everyone can make it Friday and Saturday I’m looking forward to serving our special ramen this month.
📍1303 east main st. Urbana, IL
⏰Fri Sat 5-9pm
