NEW BRUNSWICK – Down a short flight of stairs at 49 Bayard St., through the main door and then through a side door on the left, you’ll find Ramen Nagomi, a restaurant that has become a destination for diners hungry for authentic Asian flavors.
Ramen Nagomi opened about nine years ago and started serving steaming bowls of spicy miso ramen and hearty helpings of burnt garlic tonkotsu ramen before the beloved Japanese noodle soup became a trendy foodie favorite.
Other ramen restaurants have sprung up here and there, trying to ride the wave of popularity, but Ramen Nagomi continues to be a popular destination. Even on a 90-something-degree afternoon earlier this week, the lunchtime crowd filled the dining room.
“In this area, we’ve been here as a ramen staple for the longest time,” said Nazifa Chowdhoury, the general manager of this restaurant and its sibling site on Easton Avenue. “In the last, I want to say, four years, the ramen boom really exploded, especially in this area, the Central Jersey area. But we were definitely here first.
“We are the original,” she added. “We get a lot of past students, who have graduated and moved away, but come back with their kids, who are students now.”
Ramen Nagomi’s locations on Bayard Street and Easton Avenue are two of the 20 or so restaurants that will be participating in New Brunswick Restaurant Week – an event that now stretches for two weeks, July 13-27.
Restaurants will offer an array of dishes and deals for those hungry for fine fare, a noontime nosh or even a refreshing drink as they enjoy a night under the stars on George Street.
Ramen Nagomi was launched by Stebastian Karyadi, a veteran restaurateur who has since opened locations on Main Street in Freehold Borough and in the Quakerbridge Mall in Lawrenceville. The most recent one at 176 Easton Ave. opened in January 2024.
Each has a slightly different vibe and small variations to their menus. For instance, the Easton Avenue location offers sushi, the Bayard Street one does not.
One thing they share is the time and care given to preparing the broth.
The broths are made from boiling chicken neck bones and pork neck bones ethically sourced from Diamond H Ranch for at least eight hours.
“Then they make a concentrated stock base and from that base you add additional items and then additional seasonings, and then you boil that further,” Chowdhoury said. “So, it cooks for over 10 hours.”
The result is soup so fresh and methodically made that she has been told by Japanese customers that it is the most authentic bowl of ramen they’ve had since they came to the United States.
The vibe at the Bayard Street location is decidedly low key, with tables sans centerpieces, unadorned walls and low-playing music.
Instead, the soups – traditional bases with modern twists such as the miso crab ramen – are the focal point.
Appetizers range from exotic dishes such as hiyashi wakame seaweed salad (sweet soy-marinated wakame seaweed strands with pickled radish) to more common items such as hijiki tofu (organic tofu cutlet, hijiki quinoa salad, sesame and scallions).
Also popular are the crispy rice dishes, such as the inari tofu crispy rice (sweet soy marinated bean curd pocket, crispy rice, spicy crunchy garlic chips and scallions).
The Easton Avenue location was carefully chosen to cater to Rutgers students living nearby in high-rise apartments and off-campus housing.
Chowdhoury was not so long ago an English major at Rutgers, and she remembers having to navigate the university bus routes so she could get to the location at Bayard Street.
“We didn’t have a lot of money, but with the money we had, we had a long list of restaurants we wanted to go try,” she said. “Every time around like finals season, me and my friend would always book it over here. It was a trek for us, but it was a treat-yourself meal.”
During New Brunswick Restaurant Week, diners who eat out at least five times can submit their receipts for a chance to win a Best Destination gift bag from local New Brunswick restaurants.
To learn more about the participating businesses and their special Restaurant Week deals, click here.