There’s a massive ramen festival every year in Tokyo. Hundreds of thousands of ramen fans show up. It lasts for days. Chefs and shops from around the country cook, compete. And one chef from a tiny prefecture in Japan (Akita) won the title four years in a row.
That chef moved his family to San Diego a decade ago. Every morning at 4AM, he and his son Daiki come to this little strip mall near Convoy District and start their broth. It simmers for nine hours. Two doors down, they make their noodles from scratch with flour imported from Japan (milled finer, it’s the best flour for ramen noodles). The exact recipe of the flour is adjusted depending on the weather and the crop. They added a water filter, which softens San Diego water, making it closer to Japan’s.
All of this is why Menya Ultra is a gold-standard for ramen in San Diego (and Tokyo, and beyond). Get it with beer. Ramen loves beer and beer reciprocates that love.
Get the tonkotsu, the classic. It’s nearly creamy, the result not of tricks but of bones, simmered until they relinquish their best.
Ironically, Takashi became famous in Japan for his instant ramen. While most instant ramens had preservatives and stuff that wasn’t real food, he created a cleaner, no-BS version and sold it across stores. At the time, very few independent chefs were doing it (now, you can find instant ramen from most top chefs in the genre).
They have eight restaurants total, most of them in Japan. But only San Diego has Takashi-san and his son, starting the process from scratch every morning before the crack of dawn.
