© 2024 St. Louis Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

St. Louis’ 6th ramen-focused restaurant to open in early 2017 — why you should try the trend

A photo of ramen noodles.
sharyn morrow | Flickr
Ramen is a foodie trend that has made its way to St. Louis. The sixth ramen-focused restaurant will open in the area in 2017.

If St. Louis Public Radio is a regular part of your life, please be a part of ours. Become a contributor today.

St. Louis’ sixth ramen-focused restaurant, Nudo House, will open in Creve Coeur in early 2017. While ramen has been a certified food fascination on the coasts for several years now, it is safe to say it has finally taken root in the Midwest. According to Sauce Magazine’s Managing Editor Catherine Klene, “it has taken a lot for people to understand that ramen is not just what you ate in college.”

“It is not the hard blocks of ramen noodles and the flavor packets and there’s definitely no two minutes in the microwave,” Klene said. “It is a time consuming process and it is difficult to do it well and do it correctly. Chefs are taking the time to understand how to do it well before launching a full restaurant.”

A diagram discussing the basics of ramen.
Credit Kelly Moffitt | St. Louis Public Radio
Ramen isn't just your go-to college food anymore more.

That is certainly the case for Nudo House co-owners Marie-Anne Velasco and Qui Tran. Velasco, a chef known for her work in fine dining kitchens like the Ritz-Carlton and Chase Park Plaza, and Tran, co-owner of Mai Lee restaurant in Brentwood and certified “King of Pho,” teamed up over a shared love of the perfect noodle and an almost academic interest in the art of ramen.

Ramen, a traditional Japanese soup dish, mixes noodles, meat-based broth and toppings such as meat, seaweed, egg, green onions or miso. The dish varies from region-to-region in Japan (Klene likens the amount of varieties to the amount of barbecue types you might find in the U.S.). For example, ramen from northern Japan often includes corn.

That’s not what Velasco and Tran are aiming for with their shop: they are focusing on Tokyo-style ramen, which is considered more mainstream. The restaurant will also serve the Vietnamese soup dish of pho, which Tran is known for.

“For us, our ramen will be very simple,” Tran said. “We’re not going to have 20 ingredients, 10 different ingredients, it is going to be straight-to-the-point.”

That’s good news for picky eaters, who may be turned off by unidentified flavors and ingredients in ramen. Velasco put in quite a bit of work at the beginning of the process of opening the noodle house to learn from the best — that involved traveling to California for intensive scratch noodle work with Sun Noodle and Chef Shigetoshi Nakamura. Through her visits with various ramen shops, she found that simpler = better.

“You can taste what you want to taste instead of having so many different things at the same time,” Velasco said. “One thing that Chef Nakamura, our ramen mentor, taught us was how to extract chicken flavor from the chicken. It is time-consuming but that’s what we’re striving for: getting that clean flavor from each of our ingredients.”

The signature dish at Nudo House will be a pork tonkotsu-style ramen, although there will be other styles (and a vegetarian option as well).

Marie-Anne Velasco and Qui Tran will open Nudo House, a ramen-focused restaurant, in St. Louis in early 2017.
Credit Kelly Moffitt | St. Louis Public Radio
Marie-Anne Velasco and Qui Tran will open Nudo House, a ramen-focused restaurant, in St. Louis in early 2017.

“You’ll have a custardy, soy-based egg and we’ll use marinated pork shoulder, marinated bamboo shoots and the noodles,” Tran said. “We’re talking no more than four ingredients. We want the flavor profiles to be there. Once you sink into it, it will be a huge flavor bomb.”

So how do you know someone is having good ramen?

“They don’t speak,” Tran said. “Their face is planted into the bowl.”

Klene said that was the reaction she saw at a recent Nudo House pop-up at Mai Lee.

“It was just quiet for five minutes at the table because we were stuffing our faces as fast as we could,” Klene said.

This Sound Bites segment is produced as a part of a partnership between Sauce Magazine and St. Louis Public Radio.

St. Louis on the Air brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. St. Louis on the Air host Don Marsh and producers Mary Edwards, Alex Heuer and Kelly Moffitt give you the information you need to make informed decisions and stay in touch with our diverse and vibrant St. Louis region. 

Stay Connected
Kelly Moffitt joined St. Louis Public Radio in 2015 as an online producer for St. Louis Public Radio's talk shows St. Louis on the Air.