Japanese Ramen: Elevated Soup Cuisine

The leaves had turned color when, by chance, I came across Japanese Ramen Gachi (2268 W. Holcombe Blvd.) a year ago while driving to the Texas Medical Center. The temperatures had dipped below 50 degrees, ideal for a warming bowl of soup. The chicken ramen arrived steaming hot, brimming with al dente noodles and a deeply flavorful broth that rivaled my mother’s (something I have never encountered at a restaurant in Houston). Growing up, my mom was the queen of broths and soups. She spent hours simmering savory elixirs for her five children and husband. She had few rivals besides her talented former sister-in-law Mai Nguyen, who owns the venerable Mai’s Restaurant (3403 Milam Street). 

I became enamored by Gachi’s intensely flavored broths – the chicken, pork, and even miso. I tried them all, returning to this temple-like serene space with my husband almost weekly for seven months before finally introducing myself to 44-year-old Jesse Ando. The willowy Gachi owner-chef was a familiar sight in the small dining room, rushing in and out, carrying steaming bowls of ramen.

“It’s important that the soup arrives at the table very hot and not packed with too many toppings. The reason is the closer the temperature is to your body temperature, the stronger the umami tastes when you slurp the ramen with the broth. And umami is essential. It boosts all the other flavors – the salty, the sour. Everything comes together,” says Jesse, whose creations resemble edible artwork with careful placements of ingredients, including chewy noodles, a slab of cherry wood smoked pork chashu, a tangle of bean sprouts or slivers of bamboo shoots, depending on the ramen. 

Timing is everything. When we did our photo shoot, Jesse said, “Let’s set up without the noodles first because, within one minute, the noodles will expand and change. This is why I serve ramen immediately.”    

What he doesn’t rush are his well-rounded, rich broths. Unlike many ramen shops around town, he doesn’t use pre-made mixes or pressure cookers, which significantly shorten cooking time and kill the inosinic acid, which gives umami its unique flavor and depth. The end result? A less flavorful broth. 

While he has helpers in the kitchen, he handles the broth preparations himself, simmering the aromatic chicken broth for seven hours or longer and lush pork-bone broth for about 20 hours. 

I had assumed Jesse was fulfilling a lifelong dream of opening a restaurant like many chefs, but I was wrong. This was instead an objective, a mission of sorts. Jesse was the former CEO of the U.S. branch of Ippudo, a famous Japanese ramen restaurant chain with worldwide locations. He successfully ran 15 restaurants in San Franciso, Los Angeles, and New York. Dozens of his former chefs and managers have gone on to open successful ramen shops across the country. But he had no plan to do so himself. Then Covid hit, and Jesse’s views changed. He left corporate life. 

“I wanted to contribute to my country: Japan. I was thinking, ‘What should I do?’ Japan has three strengths: Cars, anime, and food. I decided to work on food,” Jesse says. And ramen. “I love ramen. I had a bowl of ramen every day in college. I also decided on Houston because it’s the fourth-largest metropolitan in the U.S. But despite its size, it didn’t have a ramen noodle shop like ones in Japan. San Franciso and New York did; many. But not Houston. At least I haven’t found one.” 

JAPANESE RAMEN GACHI Nourishing tonkotsu ramen with tender pork belly, bamboo shoots, and the must-have ajitama, the creamy, silky-boiled egg seasoned with soy sauce, sake, and mirin that tops every ramen. (Photo: Tony Bullard)

He decided not to inform the media or social media influencers who he was when he opened Gachi. His Ippudo gig would have given it automatic credibility. “And typically, that’s what you would do as a new ramen shop to drum up publicity and traffic. But I wanted to see if my ramen could stand on its own,” Jesse says. “I even chose this location because it’s out of the way, not very visible.”

In the early days of my visits, I was concerned. Another couple or a handful of Rice University students and I would be there, slurping thoughtfully curated ramen. Would Gachi make it? Despite its greaseless chicken karaage fried to perfection and addictive Japanese fried oysters? I often crave Gachi’s appetizers – from the tender pork-and-chicken gyoza dumplings sheathed in a sheer, crispy crust to the cooling cucumber batons coated with sesame oil and ground sesame. However, as the months passed, the dining room started to fill up with regulars on weekday evenings. Friends gathered around the communal table, and the two-top tables hand-carved by Jesse were typically full. 

On a recent afternoon, Aki Urayama enjoyed vegan miso ramen with black garlic oil and umami paste on top. He described the miso broth as “very exquisite.” 

There aren’t many ramen shops in Houston that meet his standards. He listed only three, including Japanese Ramen Gachi. The 50-year-old scientist works at the nearby University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston and typically doesn’t order vegan miso ramen. His favorite is chicken ramen. “But that’s no longer available. Please tell the chef to put that back on the menu,” says the researcher, who enjoyed ramen thrice weekly when he lived in Tokyo. 

In recent years, the number of Japanese ramen shops has multiplied in Houston. Still, many Americans consider ramen, the dried stuff you subsisted on in college, a last-minute meal chockful with whatever toppings you find in the refrigerator and pantry. But the Japanese consider ramen its own elevated “soup cuisine.” There are even two museums in Japan paying homage to this beloved Chinese import brought over by Confucian missionaries in the mid-1800s: The Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum in Yokohama and the Cup Noodles Museum in Osaka. 

“Ramen is to the Japanese what barbecue is to the Texan. Every Texan has his favorite barbecue place; in Japan, it is the same with ramen,” Aki says. “I’m guessing that the chef (at Gachi) is Japanese. I’m not sure, but I’m basing it on taste because the broth here is very authentic. But I don’t care if he’s Chinese or Japanese as long as he provides something great.” 

At top-tier shops in Japan, and even at middle-of-the-road joints, almost everything is fresh, handmade, and artisanal, from hand-cut noodles and long-simmered broths to pig raised on specialty diets for the popular tonkotsu, a long-simmered pork-bone broth that originated in the late 1930s on the southern island of Kyushu that has developed widespread following around the world.

Japanese Ramen Gachi transports diners to the Far East. A Zen space with sumo wrestler wall hangings and handmade wooden tables, the writing on gray Spartan walls says it all: “Gachi came to mean serious, earnest, hardworking, no joke, legit, and real. The ramen here is so gachi.” 

Not surprisingly, the little noodle shop down the street from Rice Village has attracted Japanese clientele longing for an authentic taste of home. 

Recently, I asked Jesse how his efforts of promoting authentic Japanese ramen was going. His eyes lit up. 

“Good! Yesterday, our air conditioning went out. But one of our regulars came by and fixed it for free,” he says. 

Here was my chance to lament his removal of the original chicken ramen, a personal favorite. 

“Yeah, I had to,” he says. “I couldn’t keep it chickeny anymore. It was getting harder to find really fresh, good chicken backbones. But I have a new version with more complex flavors. Here, try it.”

The Tokyo shoyu ramen, with springy noodles, swims in an umami-rich dashi chicken broth seasoned with fragrant shoyu soy sauce and topped with tender chicken breast, chive, red onion, sliced lime, bamboo shoot, soft-boiled custardy egg, and meltingly pork chashu. Truffle oil tops it off. It is sublime. 

Japanese Ramen Gachi’s flawlessly double-fried boneless chicken comes plain or showered with chili oil and Japanese chili peppers. (Photo: Tony Bullard)

Gachi’s Chicken Karaage 

The secret of Japanese fried chicken is the pieces are fried twice to make them extra crunchy outside and juicy inside. Also, people assume karaage is fried chicken, but it’s simply a generic term for deep fried food. 

12 skin-on chicken thighs, deboned 
Vegetable oil 
1 cup corn starch
1 ½ cup bread flour 
2 tablespoons sake
5 teaspoons ginger paste
5 teaspoons garlic paste

Cut each thigh into two or three pieces, about 50 grams (1.76 ounces) each. Fill an aluminum or stainless-steel pot with sides at least 5 inches tall, with about 3 inches of vegetable oil. Heat the oil to 350 degrees. 

Place several layers of paper towels on a sheet pan. While the oil heats, place a wire rack over a second sheet pan.

In a shallow baking dish, combine sake, ginger paste, and garlic paste. Toss in chicken pieces in marinade for 20 seconds.

In a bowl, combine corn starch and bread flour; set aside. Remove one piece of chicken at a time from the marinade and lightly roll in starch mixture to coat. Rest on the rack. Repeat 3 or 4 more pieces.  Gently shake off excess starch and tuck skin around and under the chicken meat (it should resemble a fist of sorts). Fry until golden for about 3 minutes, keeping oil temperature at 350 degrees. Remove from oil using a wire-mesh spoon or long chopsticks and allow to cool for three minutes on paper towels. 

Fry the chicken pieces a second time until the crust is deep golden brown, about 1 minute and 30 seconds. This second frying makes the coating stay extra crispy even if you don’t serve immediately. Repeat with remaining chicken pieces. Serve hot or at room temperature with a lemon wedge and Japanese mayonnaise. Makes 6-9 servings.