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NOW OPEN: Nom Nom Ramen
Nom Nom Ramen (20 S. 18th St.), which we featured in our March 15 cover story ahead of its March 20 rollout, has been easing its way in Philly noodledom with limited nightly services.
NOW OPEN: Nom Nom Ramen
Nom Nom Ramen (20 S. 18th St.), which we featured in our March 15 cover story ahead of its March 20 rollout, has been easing its way in Philly noodledom with limited dinner services. As of this week they're grooving along nicely, slinging soups from 5 to 8 — except tonight, actually, as owner Alan Su is currently trekking up to New York to scoop up an emergency supply of his custom-built noodles from Ramen Lab, a subsidiary of the Sun brand. He'll be back in action tomorrow, and in the coming weeks, they'll stroll into a schedule of 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. weeknights and 11 to 11 Fridays and Saurdays, with the possibility of preventative-hangover late-night service in the near future.
As we previously touched upon, Nom Nom is a hakata-style operation, meaning the basis for all of Su's soups is pork, glorious pork. It takes him two days to prepare one of his stick-stirred 80-quart pots, filled with stewing pork bones and pork feet. The marrow and collagen in these oft-overlooked porcine bits, Su says, are the source of much body and flavor (like Ramen Boy, he gets scientifical with it and gauges his broth's headiness with a refractometer), but he also touts the purported benefits. Some say (while others deny) that pork fat, as well as the collagen found in feet, boosts the health of one's skin and hair. A bit of a tough sell for some Americans, yes, but it can't hurt to mentally remind yourself how good you're treating your body as you devour a Nom Nom bowl.
Su, with partner-in-soup Joey Shin, is doing four options right now (apps are coming Monday) — a simple shoyu, tonkotsu broth cut with a taré (flavoring) of soy sauce; shio, flavored with a salt blend; miso, which introduces a big spoonful of fermented bean paste to the party; and karai, another miso variety amped up with round spiciness. The latter soup is what's being constructed above — they start with the taré (two secret dry-spice mixes, miso, sriracha and an oil blend), whisking that with ladles of their pork broth. Then come those noodles, quick-boiled before being worked into the broth with chopsticks. From here the dudes play ramen dress-up, hooking up the surface of their soup with mushrooms, bamboo shoots, slicd green onion, chashu pork belly, "Nom Nom Sauce" (a sesame oil touched up with black garlic and yuzu) and a poached egg. Prices top out at $10.19 for a large.
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