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A wave of groundbreaking ramen is about to hit D-FW 

These are glory days for Dallas ramen: This spring and summer, a wave of serious ramen shops will open across North Texas, each breaking ground in its own way.

On a recent Monday morning, Justin Holt stepped behind the stoves at Salaryman, his soon-to-open ramen shop in Bishop Arts, and began building a bowl of soup unlike any other in the United States.

Sublime, steamy and intensely comforting, glistening with crystalline chicken broth, it was intricately flavored with shio tare and textured with silken steamed chicken, crisp nori, a tender bundle of spinach and a scattering of scallion. But the star of the dish was the tangle of ramen noodles that took Holt four days to make and age until they reached chewy, fragrant perfection, partly thanks to toasted heirloom wheat flour from Barton Springs Mill.

If there are any doubts that these are glory days for Dallas ramen, one slurp of Holt's chintan shio noodles will put them to rest. And there's more good news ahead: This spring and summer, a wave of serious ramen shops will open across Dallas-Fort Worth, each breaking ground in its own way.

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Two heavy-hitters from Japan will soon have outposts here, their only locations outside of Japan and San Francisco. Both Hinodeya Ramen House and Marufuku will serve regional versions of the noodle dish. Meanwhile, noteworthy Dallas shops such as Ichigoh Ramen Lounge are keeping pace and expanding their repertoires beyond tonkotsu, the popular, porky version of ramen, and offering lighter classic Japanese styles.

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Irreverent noodle shops — another part of the ramen tradition — are going a little wilder with bowls such as sambal-cilantro vegetable ramen with housemade kimchi, the creation of Marshall Lamb, the new chef at Oni Ramen. At the first Dallas branch of Jinya which opened this spring in Victory Park, you'll find bowls garnished with a slab of brisket or frizzles of fried kale.

And then of course there's Salaryman, which will be one of the most ambitious — and obsessive — noodle shops in the country.

"It's a huge moment for ramen, especially in Texas," says Carlos Herrador, vice president of franchise operations for Marufuku, which will start serving rich, Hakata-style ramen in Frisco in June and plans to open five more D-FW locations shortly after that.

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Teiichi Sakurai, Dallas' renowned Japanese chef, helped pave the way when he opened his Tokyo-style ramen shop, Ten, on Sylvan Avenue back in 2015. It seems incredible, but at first business was "really bad," Sakurai says. It took Dallas a while to catch on to the craze, which had been going strong on the West Coast and in New York for more than a decade.

Today, he likens the ramen rush to the 1980s, when sushi was booming. "I have that same feeling right now," he says. "The way everyone wanted to do a sushi bar, now people want to open a ramen shop."

And many of them can, as the appetite for the dish grows and ingredients become more available. In fact, Sun Noodle Co., which makes ramen to the individual specifications of chefs across the country, plans to open a noodle factory in Houston, its fourth after locations in Hawaii, California and New Jersey. "That," Sakurai says, "tells you how high the demand is in the ramen business right now."

And how much Dallas ramen lovers have to look forward to. Here's a taste of the next wave.

Salaryman

After five years of perfecting his ramen in pop-ups around Dallas, Justin Holt will open this polished little shop in June in partnership with David and Jennifer Uygur of Macellaio, right next door in Bishop Arts. Holt, a former chef at Lucia, the Uygurs' other restaurant, takes an obsessive approach to the dish, making everything from scratch with locally sourced ingredients — Cartermere Farms chicken, in particular, which will be the basis for both the broths and an extensive menu of yakitori. This is the only ramen shop in Dallas to make its own noodles — and one of very few in the country — and Holt isn't stopping there. He even plans to make his own Binchotan-style charcoal using branches of Texas oak. Like I said, obsessive.

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Two noodles — made with different flours and hydrations, in different thicknesses — will be paired with the broths. The richer paitan and chintan shoyu broths will get a thin, milder noodle, while the clear chintan will have a thicker noodle made from toasted yecora rojo wheat. Garnishes will match the weight of the soup. For instance, scallion on the lighter broth and diced white onion on the richer shoyu, which is also topped with delicious slices of cured and roasted pork collar.

The rest of the menu will focus on yakitori made from most every part of the bird — an idea partly inspired by Yardbird, Matt Abergel's ultra-hip yakitori restaurant in Hong Kong. Salaryman is beautiful, too, done up in light woods, arty wallpaper patterned with squawking chickens, and custom ceramics by James Olney of Oak Cliff Pottery.

287 N. Bishop Ave., Dallas. salarymanoakcliff.com.

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Ichigoh Ramen Lounge

Two veterans of Ippudo ramen in New York City stealthily opened this shop last fall in the old Tanoshii space in Deep Ellum. The sign still hasn't changed, and the remodeling is still to come, but the menu continues to evolve. George Itoh and chef Andy Tam aim for strictly classic Tokyo-style ramen, beginning with noodles imported from Sapporo. Broths are clear chicken chintan, an intense vegetable shoyu, and yuzu shio, a clear chicken broth brightened with Japanese citrus. Miso and paitan broths will be added soon, and the list of izakaya-style starters is growing, too, notably with tatsujin pork ribs, which are braised in the cooking juices of the chashu, the tender slice of pork atop the ramen. That's right: pork cooked in pork.

Itoh and Tam are scouting a second location in North Dallas, which will be equally rigorous. "A lot of places are kind of like WhataRamen: You choose and mix and match to your heart's desire," Itoh says. "That goes against everything we stand for. Each soup and flavor base and tare is specifically for a purpose. You can't mix and match — at least, not with us."

2724 Commerce St., Dallas. ichigohramen.com.

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Hinodeya Ramen Bar

Masao Kuribara's family opened the first Hinodeya 134 years ago in the Saitama prefecture of Japan. Kuribara, a fourth-generation chef with a fine-dining background, is bringing global ambitions to the family business: He has already opened two branches of Hinodeya in San Francisco, and in mid-July, they will be joined by a new shop on Greenville Avenue, with an interior created by a designer and an artist from Japan.

Hinodeya is known for its dashi broth, a light, umami-rich base made with bonito flakes. It's an unusual ramen even in Japan, and Kuribara says his shops are the first in the U.S. to specialize in it. The restaurant will also serve paitan chicken broth and a vegan broth enriched with soy and sesame seeds. All of the noodles are made to Hinodeya's specifications and, like in San Francisco, the menu will be rounded out with izakaya dishes, dumplings and rice dishes.

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Unique to Texas will be a full bar focusing on Japanese whisky and sake, and new dishes with Texas touches. "I think that food culture should always merge with the land and be something that evolves and evolves," Kuribara says, "like Tex-Mex."

2023 Greenville Ave., Dallas. hinodeyaramen.com.

Marufuku

This San Francisco ramen shop famous for hours-long lines will open its first-ever franchise on June 10 at the 99 Ranch Market plaza in Frisco. And that's just the beginning: Local owner Jeff Chan, who is in the restaurant supply business, plans a total of six Marufukus in the Dallas area, says Carlos Herrador, the company's head of franchising. "We are a very traditional ramen restaurant," he says, specializing in a rich, Hakata-style ramen with a 20-hour tonkotsu broth. "We are flying our Japanese chef to Dallas for training. It will be the same formula as San Francisco — a secret, of course — using specific bones and parts of pork or chicken for the Hakata style."

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There are two bowls to choose from: tonkotsu and paitan, plus a DX (deluxe) version of each. Paitan DX comes with a soy-cooked chicken leg and thigh, tonkotsu DX with a thick piece of braised pork belly. Choose your own spice level or add from a short list of traditional toppings. The rest of the menu includes rice dishes and izakaya fare such as Japanese fried chicken and fried squid legs, salad with shiso-plum dressing, Japanese craft beer and sake, and cocktails.

9150 Warren Parkway, Frisco. marufukuramen.com.

Oni Ramen

Though it's best known for a crazy-hot bowl made with Carolina Reaper peppers, Oni serves serious soup based on a 24-hour pork broth and a 12-hour chicken broth made in-house at each location. Noodles, thin and thick, are from Kobayashi Seimen in Torrance, Calif. And there's a wide array of toppings, seasonings and pepper sauces to customize your bowl, plus starters including light takoyaki (octopus fritters) and karaage (fried chicken).

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In January, chef Marshall Lamb took over from the founding chef, Jesus Garcia. Lamb is reimagining the Fort Worth location, with new decor and a Dylan Kennedy sea serpent mural, and an even more freewheeling approach in the kitchen. Think chicken chili verde with avocado, or crawfish with Japanese sausage.

Lamb, a 28-year veteran with a long history in West Coast seafood restaurants, describes his approach as "a Japanese-Texas ramen thing — we really don't have any boundaries." But he learned to make ramen from Garcia, who studied in Japan. A location in Richardson is set to open in August, and plans are underway for expansion across Texas and beyond.

2801 W. Seventh Street, Fort Worth, and 2822 Elm Street, Dallas. oniramen.com.

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Jinya Ramen Bar

The first D-FW location of this Tokyo-based shop has arrived in Victory Park with a dark loungey interior, live flames shooting out of a tabletop on the patio and a menu of combinations you might find on a wacky Japanese cooking show. Start with 14 elaborate bowls, including wonton chicken ramen and Goku Midnight Cowboy, with a slab of beef brisket, then customize from a list of 28 toppings, from fresh garlic to spicy ground pork to butter. I ordered a bowl called the Green Monster, with chicken broth tinted with kale paste, chicken breast, green onions, fried kale and green kale noodles. It was a pretty good bowl, but on the oily side. Probably because of all that fried kale soaking in the broth.

The many choices extend to the starters: salads, small plates, rice bowls and tacos in fried wonton shells. And on every table, there's a helpful card explaining how to capture it all for Instagram. Of course.

625 High Market St., Dallas. jinya-ramenbar.com.