Miso Ramen
Nashville has had a contingent of Japanese restaurants for decades. Maybe it's the presence of Japanese companies in Middle Tennessee, or the L.A. music connection, but we've been enthusiastically eating Japanese food, particularly sushi, for a long time. (Whether our sushi options are good enough — especially in comparison to cities with a more direct connection to the coasts — is a question for debate. But at least we have enough sushi to sate modest desires.)
What we haven't always had, however, is good ramen.
That's what spurred Sarah Gavigan to join the food scene. A music business transplant from Los Angeles, she started experimenting in her Nashville kitchen in an attempt to create the noodle bowls she craved. Soon she was going through hundreds of pounds of pork bones from Porter Road Butcher as she worked to boil up the perfect broth.
Gavigan's business, initially called Otaku South, started gradually, first as a pop-up. Before long her ramen bowls got something of a fine-dining endorsement when one of the founding chefs of The Catbird Seat, Erik Anderson, hosted an Otaku ramen night in the Catbird space. Eventually, Gavigan and her husband Brad launched POP, an East Nashville venue for pop-ups, with Otaku presiding during the week and different pop-ups scheduled on weekends. When Gavigan's excellent concept Little Octopus took over the Gallatin Avenue space, she began work on a permanent spot for her ramen in the Gulch.
All that comes together at Otaku Ramen, which has been operating in the ground level of the Icon tower in the Gulch for around three months. The most recent development is the addition of a Japanese-inspired whisky bar within Otaku, created by noted local bartender Ben Clemons of No. 308.
And it all adds up to one of the best new restaurants in town, as I discovered on a couple recent visits. The menu of noodle bowls and Japanese-inspired appetizers is small but positively gem-like, with a winning attention to fresh preparation and high-quality ingredients.
The hot chicken bun, in which a bun is folded over a small piece of spicy fried chicken, with dill pickle and slaw made with Kewpie brand Japanese mayo, is a delicious little celebration of local pride, but I was even more knocked out by the duck bun. Duck is one of my very favorite foods, but it's not always easy to find on Nashville menus, certainly not at a reasonable price point. (Given the general weakness of our Chinese restaurants, even the familiar Peking duck isn't always worth ordering, if it's even available.) Otaku's duck bun, however, is a spectacular hit of duck goodness for only $8 (that's for two buns). The bun exterior enrobes rich, moist confit duck leg, with pickled plum and scallions. It's a bit reminiscent of Peking duck, but in a lovely little package you can hold in your hand.
Other appetizers (which the menu calls "snacks") are gyoza, pan-fried dumplings filled with pork, accompanied by a sprightly lemon ponzu sauce for dipping, and okonomiyaki, a pancake stuffed with cabbage and scallions. Brought to the table in a sizzling iron skillet, it's topped with flakes of dried bonito (we watched the savory shavings curl and wave in ripples of heat exuded from the pancake) and stripes of the same Kewpie mayo and a little heap of pickled ginger. Though warm and filling, it was my least favorite dish — it reminded me almost of a conventional potluck casserole. My dining companions, however, loved it, and we left few crumbs in the skillet.
And at last we arrived at the ramen. Like most Americans, I know ramen originally from the cheap packaged noodles with the little foil envelope of seasoning, which is classic broke-student fare, but is nonetheless somehow pretty good, if prefab factory flavorings don't bother you. Then as an adult, I saw the famous food-centric Japanese film Tampopo, and acquired the romantic idea of ramen. Living in Chicago for a few years, I found a couple noodle joints that stoked my ramen dreams. In particular I enjoyed miso ramen, a noodle-bowl variation that showcases the earthy taste of miso and tends to be less salty than typical soy-sauce based broths.
That's why I felt a frisson of excitement when I saw miso ramen on the Otaku menu — and it turned out to be even better than I hoped. The vegetarian shiitake mushroom-based broth is rich and deep, and studded with cubes of fried tofu, little round onions and fresh shishito peppers, topped with bright greens and a bouquet of enoki mushrooms (the finger-shaped mushrooms that look like Dr. Seuss invented them). The ramen is cooked to the perfect al dente noodle texture, neither mushy nor crunchy. This outstanding dish immediately surged (like Hokusai's "Great Wave," the iconic Japanese woodblock print I noticed on the wall) to the top of my list of favorite restaurant dishes in town.
The "Tennessee Tonkotsu" bowl was familiar to me from the Otaku pop-up days, but I was thrilled to try it again. Intensely flavored pork-bone broth is the basis, flavored with black garlic oil. The soup's ingredients include the excellent ramen and a chunk of braised pork, with wood ear mushrooms and scallions, but the eye-popping capper is a perfectly cooked egg floating atop the broth, with a silky egg white and a yolk that a diner fry cook might call "medium" — a solid yellow exterior yielding to a lush liquid in the center.
As I mentioned, I'd had the pork bowl before, but the Otaku team has continued to perfect it over the months; the pure pork broth, without a hint of grease, is a revelation.
The other two bowls also include the starring egg. The broth of the shio bowl delivers chicken and seafood flavors without a hint of fishiness. The light taste of the broth complements a savory roll of grilled pork belly floating in it, along with scallion and dark-green nori seaweed. The broth of the paitan bowl is intensely chicken-flavored, cradling a chunk of roasted chicken. Like all of the ingredients in all of the bowls, the roasted chicken is easily deconstructed with your chopsticks or loaded onto your flat spoon.
The components are pretty perfectly balanced as is, but there's also a list of extras to add to your noodle bowl: spices (including Korean chili paste, raw garlic and chili oil) for $1, and proteins (including chicken, pork, tofu or an egg marinated in soy) for $2. Our server was knowledgeable and friendly, suggesting which extras would enhance each bowl.
The beverages are also where the knowledgeable servers can help. The sake list totals about a dozen, representing various styles and nuances. Beer options include the classic Sapporo on draft, and a long list of different brews from Japan's Hitachino Nest brewery. There's also a small, apt selection of wine by the glass, but the newest addition is the cocktail menu from the Japanese whisky bar.
I tried the Wabi-Sabi cocktail, which is unique, combining barley tea, lemongrass and Japanese whiskey on ice, topped with a bit of lemongrass that's been lightly scorched. It's a refreshing drink that's not at all sweet. (The actual Japanese concept of "wabi-sabi," as I understand it, is about acknowledging the beauty of things that are weathered and imperfect, an idea I can certainly get behind.)
Otaku Ramen is strategically located in the former Rumours space in the Gulch; it's not huge, but it's lively and convivial. In the front room, you can sit at a counter and watch the noodle action, or sit at one of the rectangular tables, which may be shared by a couple of small parties. A second room features more tables and the cocktail bar, with stools for perching.
The decor is whimsical; I particularly liked looking at images from My Neighbor Totoro, animation master Hayao Miyazaki's classic movie about a large, cuddly forest creature who befriends two little girls who are worried about their mother's illness. Like Totoro, a bowl of ramen noodles is pure comfort in a big, round, delightful form. I'm glad Otaku is keeping the broth bubbling in the Gulch.
Because of unexpectedly high opening volume, hours have been evolving, but here's the current lineup: lunch 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Dinner 5 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and also Sunday; 5 p.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday. Gavigan says we can expect the menu to expand with specials and other developments soon.
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