Ramen master Takashi Endo has arrived in town from Japan bearing his award-winning ramen, which just might be San Diego’s best yet. The chef, who opened his first ramen shop in 1994 in Akita, a prefecture in Japan’s Tohoku region, now operates nine ramen eateries in Japan and two in Taiwan, all with varying menus. His 12th shop, which just debuted in Kearny Mesa, is Endo’s first outside Asia. The new San Diego location of his Menya Ultra concept revolves around ramen made with long-simmered pork tonkotsu broth, a silky umami-laden MSG-free soup that’s the base for the restaurant’s classic tonkotsu ramen, miso ramen and tantan men, a Chinese-influenced ramen topped with a fried pork or chicken cutlet.
Endo tells Eater that his goal is to introduce American palates to authentic Japanese ramen of the highest quality; for the chef, that means making ramen noodles daily on-site, crafted from a special wheat sourced from Hokkaido, Japan which gives the strands a uniquely smooth and bouncy texture. The menu will soon expand to include tsukemen, a dipping variation of ramen designed to showcase the noodles.
The chef/restaurateur, who will be traveling back and forth from San Diego to Japan, tells Eater that he plans to open at least two or three more shops in San Diego before taking his ramen concepts up the West Coast and across the country.