Dan de los Monteros
The ikura don rice bowl is topped with brined and loose chum salmon eggs.
The ramen revolution happening right now in North America is something that I haven’t quite caught up with yet. Madison alone boasts at least four restaurants that feature ramen as their central dish. With Strings Ramen opening on Frances Street in January, that number is now five. Strings is a boutique chain out of Chicago, with the Madison location being its first satellite restaurant.
Strings Ramen focuses on teaching newbies like me about ramen while also maintaining authenticity. The menu includes detailed descriptions of ingredients, as well as regional variances, and even step-by-step instructions on how to eat a bowl of ramen.
The center of any ramen shop is the broth, and Strings features three kinds. The shoyu ramen is a broth made with dashi (a kelp base) and shoyu (soy sauce). The miso ramen has a turkey and chicken bone broth base with dissolved miso, or fermented soy paste. The tonkotsu ramen is a pork bone-based broth made from Kurobuta pork, synonymous with the Berkshire pig. Pork bones for this dish are boiled for 48 hours to derive the signature creamy richness of the tonkotsu broth.
Strings’ tonkotsu is rich and (not overly) salty. Medallions of pork tenderloin floated next to a nori square with a soft-boiled egg as a lifeboat. I have recently been obsessed with boiling eggs and would love to know the kitchen’s secret for not only perfectly soft boiling their eggs, but also chilling them. The yolk inside was ice cold floating in hot soup!
The egg noodles weren’t curly as I might expect, but straight and with a good tooth feel. The texture was reminiscent of al dente spaghetti. The benefit of straight noodles is less splash, but as careful as I am in my slurping (ramen must be slurped!), inevitably my shirts are due for a Tide Stick treatment to remedy all the little greasy spots.
Bamboo shoots and maitake (hen of the woods) mushrooms add other opportunities for great texture in the soup. Mushrooms are unfortunately my culinary kryptonite, but hen of the woods have a mild enough flavor, even for a mushroom coward like me.
All three broths are quite good and distinct in their character. The mikkusu yasai simply adds vegetables to the shoyu broth. While not vegetarian (there is fish in the soy sauce), the broth is clean and light with the slight kelp flavor balancing the soy. (The broth can be made vegetarian upon request; the kitchen will sub a different soy sauce.)
The spicy crab ramen is made with the miso broth. The tonkotsu is advertised as the richest broth, but the creamy miso paired with the rich crab and flakes of pork reminded me of a seafood bisque and hit my stomach a bit heavier than the tonkotsu.
Noodle lovers should know that for a minimal charge you can order kae dama, or extra noodles, if you have broth left.
Starters of note include the lotus root. Marinated in sugar, soy and sesame oil and chilled, the sliced disks of root have repetitive holes almost like Swiss cheese and a light crunch. My daughter, to little surprise, loved the steamed edamame (minus the spice) and literally gobbled the pork gyoza dripping with sweet ponzu sauce.
Strings also features donburi, or rice bowls. The ikura don is a rice bowl topped with ikura salmon roe — brined and loose chum salmon eggs. It is a simple starchy bowl of short-grained rice spiced with a bit of bonito (dried fish) flake, dried seaweed, wasabi and a soy/fish sauce. On top of my rice bowl was an ample pile of the orange translucent fish eggs, cradled in another one of those lovely soft-boiled chicken eggs. The starch of the rice mellowed the salty brine of the roe. Closing my eyes, I could almost see the Pacific Ocean.
Strings is a small space with elevated wooden tables and booths. The service staff exuberantly shouts “namaste” as you enter for a table and are almost overly attentive, if that’s a concern. The sound system thumps with a variety of EDM, and the ambience suggests that ramen should be eaten with gusto and at a quicker pace. According to the menu, a bowl of ramen should only take about 10 minutes to eat. Beware of the lack of lunch hours Monday through Thursday, though this may change as the restaurant finds its legs.
I know a lot more about ramen than I did before eating at Strings Ramen. If you are already a ramen expert, and too cool for earnest explanation and detail, perhaps this small chain might not be for you. But for someone like me, who learned ramen from the dried packet, Strings Ramen is a welcome education.
Strings Ramen
311 N. Frances St., 608-665-3837; ramenchicago.com
5 pm-10pm Mon.-Thurs., 11 am-10 pm Fri.-Sat.; $9-$24
