Tomo No Ramen at Lucky Strike: 'Tomo so-so ramen' - restaurant review
Can Tomo's ramen brilliance be replicated on East Street?
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Now - onto the review!
~ Meg, The Bristol Sauce Founder & Editor
Last year I troughed through a litre of hot soup and then walked up a hill in 30-degree heat.
This sounds like a weird choice until I add that I did this in Onomichi, the home and mecca of pork back fat ramen.
I’d heard how legendary the south Japanese city was for its ramen and decided it was the one thing I would not leave the area without eating. The restaurant I picked was on the harbour but comfortingly ordinary, with fierce air-con (praise be), laminated menus, distinct lack of decor, and an overcrowded community notice board. At least I assume that’s what it was – after applying Google translate to the info board at the ferry port and finding out it’s where the police department displays its wanted-for-murder posters, who knows what it really said.
Back to the ramen. The broth? Silky. The meat? Succulent. The noodles? Chewy. The egg? Jammy. The pork fat? Buoyant. I never wanted to stop eating it, so precisely had the chef hit the bliss point. I wish was I was still slurping it down now, 18 months later. I’m convinced it cured me of the cold I was coming down with at the time.
I have zero desire to be girl who returns from Asia with a view on how food should *really* taste but obviously I was curious to compare my, dare I say, life-transforming ramen experience to Tomo No Ramen’s pop-up menu at Lucky Strike. Especially when the website details that the restaurant learns from the classics, and owner and chef James Stuart is a self-declared ramen obsessive who constantly strives to recreate those ever-elusive authentic flavours; something he’s clearly managed to create at Tomo No Ramen’s acclaimed Old Market branch.
For sides we order zingy smashed cucumber with spicy sesame (£5), yasai gyoza with hints of clove (£8.50), and shio koji-baked celeriac and ponzu (£5) served with ‘sharp dipping sauce’ which I’m pretty sure is just soy. Nice though, and I’ll add to the Sauce’s penchant for loving celeriac by saying this dish is one of the best examples of the vegetable I’ve ever had. Soft and pleasantly similar to parsnip. Our cocktails are divine: umeshu negroni with sake (£9) and a fragrant yuzu bellini (£10), well-executed twists on the Western originals.
Now, I like a challenge, but attempting to share three bowls of ramen is possibly a step too far. No matter, we somehow manage it and I like to think it strengthens our friendship – anything for a thorough restaurant review, right?
The shōwa shoyu ramen (£15) is classic in style, topped with a soy-marinated egg and made with clear, savoury, moreish chicken broth. Bamboo shoots and nori (seaweed, for any heathens out there) are welcome embellishments, rounding out the flavours.
The other two ramen – mala shoyu (£16), with fall-apart, soy-braised pork belly, and chicken kare (£16.50) from the specials menu – begin well with salty broth contrasting sweet baby corn and fatty meat but by the end we’re struggling.
It is my opinion that no matter how full you are, your capacity to down ramen broth should never end. And yet, before we reach the bottom of the bowl, we’ve had enough of the soup; it becoming simultaneously too saccharine and over-salted, the chicken growing blander by the minute. The pork teriyaki donburi add-on (£3) – juicy, saucy meat on sweet, sticky sushi rice with a topping of toasted rice – is actually my favourite dish.
Before we can peruse the dessert menu, a sheepish, cord-wearing waiter (they all wear cord here*) comes over to tell us he needs the table back and could we possibly move to the bar. While it’s wonderful to hear of a restaurant being so popular, it’s less enjoyable to tuck into the final course when only 2/3 of the party has a barstool.
As seems to be tradition for me after a big bowl of ramen, we take to the (metaphorical) hills; mont blanc (£6), extravagant and chock-full of meringue, biscuit, cream, and caramel that is an unfortunate grey colour thanks to the use of miso, but this gives it a good savoury edge. The summit and apex is the chocolate mousse (£6). A cornucopia of flavours, stuffed with cherry compote and shot through with orange juice and cinnamon - it tastes of Christmas. Intense without being overwhelming, interesting with being distracting. Actually, writing that down, that doesn’t sound like such an apt description of Christmas at all.
While I didn’t expect to find a strong best-ramen-ever contender in Tomo, I had hoped for something a little closer to it. But the restaurant is still a great bet for noodle-seekers in Bristol, especially south of the river where options for a warming bowl of broth are few and far between.
Following the news Tomo will be setting up shop semi-permanently in Lucky Strike, I look forward to returning and hope they continue to refine their ramen recipes, and find space for the undoubtedly numerous future customers.
James may be a ramen aficionado, but operating multiple sites always presents challenges. I’m sure he’ll get the balance right in the end. And anyway, in the words of the great Miley Cyrus: it’s not about what's waiting on the other side, it's the climb.
All words and photos by Caitlin Johnson-Bowring
Tomo No Ramen at Lucky Strike, 61 East St, BS3 4HB
*Who am I kidding, all three of us were too.
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