“Do you want to take some video?” my server asked, her knife poised above the quivering surface of Kyuramen‘s popular omurice.
She waited patiently, and when I was ready, sliced the omelet — slowly. It’s a technique that allows this delicate blob to unfold as it splits, revealing the soft-cooked egg inside as it drapes, like golden velvet, over the mound of fried rice on which it sits.
A curry sauce is then poured over the top.
It’s a show, to be sure, one that’s made this version of the dish into a viral sensation with the advent of social media.
The servers didn’t always take the time to prompt guests at Kyuramen in this way, but in the short time since this popular chain — more than 120 locations in the U.S. and Japan — made its debut near UCF, owner John Zhao has found out just how many burgeoning food pornographers are out there.
“Around nine out of 10 customers who order the omurice want to record it,” he tells me, laughing. “They actually get mad if you cut it too fast!”
And so, special training was required.
“I set up a special rule with the servers that they had to spend a little extra time with this dish, to cut the egg slow and let the people record it.”
It doesn’t sound like much, but in a restaurant as busy as this place has been since opening its doors at the end of November, the extra time is something servers could probably use.
I’m not exaggerating, either.
On my first (attempt at a) visit, I showed up alone on a Sunday night, intent on ordering a small feast and camping out for a bit with a new book. Once there, I found a line winding out the door and nearly to the end of the shopping plaza.
“The store is doing great and we are grateful!” Zhao tells me. “Lines all the time, on average we’re doing 350 tickets a day.”
I got lucky two days later around 4:30 on a Tuesday. No line. (Zhao says 3-5 p.m. is their “slow” time.) The place was still buzzing though, and that’s fitting, since the back wall of this beautifully designed space is where you’ll find “the honeycomb.”
Funky booths designed in that classic shape, only two are seatable (one requires a short flight of stairs). It’s part of what Kyuramen’s founder, Gary Lin, came up with when he designed the joint. So, too, is the Wishing Tree, a towering and beautiful signature you’ll find in all the locations where guests can leave everything from poems to restaurant feedback on wooden “leaves” of sorts.
My pal and I got lucky, snagging the ground-floor honeycomb booth, which could easily have sat 6.
The omurice ($19.99) is the priciest offering, but to be fair, it’s a lot of food — delicious, hangover-perfect food, to be frank — and it takes a lot of skill to make. Plus it’s sold as a combo, and comes with a drink (lemonade or Thai iced tea) from the Tbaar location that sits just inside the restaurant’s entryway.
“Gary (Lin) founded Tbaar in Brooklyn back in 2006, way before boba tea was popular like it is now,” says Zhao. “He folded the tea concept into the ramen concept. I did the same thing when I built Bakery 1908 — boba, buns, cakes, dumplings, coffee. You have to combine everything together to really increase sales and make the place into a very unique place.”
Ramen, of course, is the star here — the bowls, huge portions with flavorful broth (pork mostly), chashu, soft-boiled egg, wakame, nori, bamboo shoots, corn and more in different combinations — and the crowd can’t get enough.
We reveled in ours (chicken for my pal, Tokyo tonkotsu shio with black garlic for me) and Zhao noted that although the meats — “I always get triple meat!” he tells me. “I love it. — are sent from Lin’s main kitchen in New York, the broth is made on site.
Six huge pots, big enough for a hundred pounds of pork bones, are simmering constantly, for 10 hours at a minimum. You can taste the love.
“The broth is everything,” Zhao tells me.
Mine clocked in at a reasonable $17. My daughter slurped up the half I couldn’t finish when I got home and inquired when we could go back. She’s the right demographic.
Traditionalists may balk at a ramen place that also serves boba, but Zhao’s not worried. He’s not one for tradition.
A Chinese native who moved to Belize at 14 before emigrating to the States, his first restaurant, Tampa’s Yummy House (which now has five locations in Florida) — serves American-style Chinese food.
Bakery 1908 brings fresh-baked fare, ferociously good dim sum to Mills 50 | Review
With dumplings, buns, boba and more, restaurateur John Zhao’s Yummy House Restaurant Group empire expands with Americans’ knowledge of Asian cuisine.
“Older generations won’t eat it,” he says, “but I love it. It’s the same thing with this ramen concept. Fifty percent of our customers at Kyuramen are between 20 and 30. You think they’re going to follow the rules? You mix things up, and the crowd loves it. It’s what the market needs at this point.”
The lines don’t lie.
And when you’re done with the ramen — which you might not finish if like me, you sample the stellar fried squid tentacles ($9.99) and/or oysters ($9.99, and man, are they juicy!) — light $5 desserts like the matcha pudding or truly lovely Japanese cherry blossom jelly are wonderful, post-tonkotsu palate cleansers.
Zhao’s YH Restaurant Group portfolio is truly blowing up (this marks the first time I’ve written up the same owner’s restaurants back to back; I did not plan it this way). His next Kyuramen will open in Sarasota soon. Not bad for an immigrant whose restaurant career started in the dish pit.
“Now I get to employ many new immigrants. I see them settling down, buying homes and it makes me proud.”
As do the plates they’re slinging at Kyuramen. More will come soon as they get their feet under them, perhaps the rice and ramen burgers featured at many other locations.
When that happens, seasoned servers will have diners ready for their close-ups.
If you go
KyuRamen: 3402 Technological Ave. in Orlando, 407-668-4088; kyuramen.com
Want to reach out? Find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: [email protected]. For more fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group or follow @fun.things.orlando on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
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