At this new Fresno ramen restaurant, one dish is 12 hours in the making. Here’s why
Ramen is comfort food.
It seems fitting that Brothers Ramen & Japanese Eatery would open just in time for fall, my interview with the owners landing on a rare chilly afternoon.
Brothers Ramen is at Blackstone and Nees avenues, in the same shopping center as Rubber Soul Bicycles. It opened in late October and after selling out of broth two days in a row, it’s back up to speed.
We’re not talking here about the pennies-per-pack Top Ramen at the back of your cupboard. This is the authentic Japanese soup made by a chef who spent more than 20 years working in Japan.
“It’s top ramen, but it’s not instant,” chef Taro Kawai likes to joke.
At its most basic, ramen is broth, noodles, slices of pork and a few other extras.
Unlike some restaurants with a long list of ramen options, there’s only two on the menu at Brothers.
The tonkotsu ramen, the most traditional kind, is made with a pork bone broth that is simmered for 12 hours. The broth is nearly opaque, and thicker and creamier than most soup broths.
Some restaurants use a pork broth concentrate, but not here.
It is served with two slices of meaty pork shoulder and two slices of fattier pork belly. Add an optional soft-boiled egg soaked in a soy-based marinade and you can mix the runny yolk into the noodles to create a totally new flavor.
The other broth, shoyu, is soy based and made with chicken that also takes 12 hours to make. Shoyu is a lighter, clearer broth for people who don’t eat pork are otherwise looking for something lighter.
Both basic bowls cost $10.
The owners subscribe to the In-N-Out theory of a limited menu: “You’ve got to keep it simple if you’re want to do it right” Kawai said.
When you do it over and over and over again, you’ll get it right, he said.
Sidenote: If ramen is new to you, don’t worry about how to eat it. Just double fist it. Grab a spoon in one hand for broth, chopsticks in the other to get the noodles to your mouth. Slurping is OK and so is drinking directly from the bowl.
The menu
In addition to ramen, the rest of the menu contains rice bowls, plates and salads with your choice of protein, like teriyaki chicken, pork or tri-tip.
Two notable options: karaage and baos. Karaage a kind of Japanese deep fried chicken in a ginger marinade. A bao is a Chinese steamed bun, fluffy and thick, used here like a taco to hold the meat of your choice.
The “brothers”
As for the restaurant name, the brothers who own it are not actually brothers. They’re three friends and colleagues who used to run a company that manufactured vaping liquid.
All three – Ryan Ah Tye, Lance Benggon and Kawai – are from Fresno. They all spent some time attending Clovis West High School, but didn’t know each other as they’re of different ages.
Each brings their own specialty to the business. Ah Tye is the business the guy, Benggon is the customer service/management guy.
The chef, Kawai, grew up in a kitchen at his family’s Japanese restaurant in Fresno, Daruma-Tei, before they sold it.
He spent 23 years in Japan learning to be a chef, running his own restaurant and others.
This story was originally published November 21, 2019 at 3:00 AM.
