Often when I venture into Seminole Heights, I don’t feel I have a high enough hipness quotient. I imagine reaching a Florida Avenue “hipster checkpoint” where I turn off my Sondheim and blast an indie playlist from Leilani Polk while trying to pass. Still, I receive a pink slip for lacking the appropriate garb. Buddy Holly/Malcom X glasses: NO. Skinny jeans: IMPOSSIBLE. Combat boots: SORRY. No ink, no cigs.
My case is hopeless.
Luckily, the badass #RamenArmy from Ichicoro Ramen has no such requirements. What it does have is buzz with a capital “B.” Though it just opened Oct. 28 (following a shakedown as an NYC pop-up in the Ramen Lab test kitchen of its supplier, Sun Noodle), Ichicoro has patrons waiting for hours — even early on a weeknight.
So, what’s an insatiable ramen zombie to do? The obvious answer is to hug the huge glass garage door opposite the bar, where the interior hardware makes a perfect cocktail shelf. There, patrons may drink, snack and chat as they wait to enter the second half of the space; that, is ramen central.
The superb cocktails under the watchful eye of Jessie Wohlers, a transplant from Brooklyn’s notable craft cocktail haven Clover Club, deliver unexpected delights. All six selections are based on shōchū, sort of a Japanese vodka. They are distinctly atypical for American palates. The Sangreezy is a sweet concoction of apricot tea syrup and elderflower liqueur with plum and lemon juices served on the rocks in a wine glass. When matched with karaage, a marinated chicken nugget snack served with spicy garlic mayo, it cuts the heat like a knife and readies your palate for another go.
We also enjoy the pork steam bun. The two puffy, fluffy white buns wrap thick slices of tender pork, sitting in sweet citrus hoisin and topped with some pickled crunchy veggies that satisfy on all levels.
Then there’s Hero Water, which pairs shōchū with coconut cream, Angostura bitters and the bite of fresh lime. It’s the cucumber juice, however, that predominates in this surprising, yet refreshing, cocktail served with ice in a rocks glass. It’s a good thing, though, that Mad Men is off the air. Don Draper would be appalled.
My favorite cocktail is the Cactuar. A highball glass with the omnipresent shōchū, lime juice and Fabbri tamarind liquor comes alive as house ginger syrup passes through the bartender’s tiny sieve and fills the glass with cloudy umber nectar. It may look like some kind of iced tea concoction, but the bright ginger flavors make your mouth come alive.
Unlike St. Pete’s Mango Tree, which features several ramen options among a voluminous list of choices, Ichicoro’s drink and food menus are deliberately limited. Restaurateur Noel Cruz and chefs Masa Takaru and Chakira Hiratsu work as a well-oiled machine behind the other 10-seat bar that overlooks the open kitchen. Their Tampa-style ramen, incorporating Florida ingredients like citrus and corn, is disorientingly good.
The game-changer here is the complexity of the broths. Use your olfactory senses to smell the soup as you might a fine wine; take time to let the aromas fill your head. Then, use the lovely wide wooden spoon and sip the broth. Again, like a wine, notice the nuances on the palate. If you have a posse (as I do when I’m tasting), compare the different broths. After, grab your chopsticks, move the ramen to your spoon or mouth and slurp away. And most certainly, lift the bowl to your lips at the end; wasting even a drop is a sin.
The veggie bowl has a wonderful miso-tomato broth that cedes nothing to its meat-based cousins. It’s well balanced and a great base for the chewy noodles topped with fresh corn, earthy shiitakes, sesame, scallions and seasonal veggies, including the seductive smokiness of shishito peppers and a tumbleweed garnish of ultra-thin bamboo shoots crisped tempura-style.
I’m reveling in the wonderful flavors when I move to the miso bowl. The pork broth is a knockout. In juxtaposition to the veg, it’s like slurping the world’s greatest-tasting oil slick. The pork fat’s lushness is almost shocking. With some sesame, onion, bean sprouts, scallions and perfectly crunchy menma (braised bamboo shoots), you’ve got another bowl that soars. We opt to include the homemade bacon extra that just ups the smokiness with crisp, striking lardon.
Perhaps the best is the mixed ramen champon, which takes a pork-chicken mashup broth and layers it with gulf shrimp (listed as head-on but served to me with just a tail), chasyu asado (a luscious chunk of braised pork), ginger tempura and the ubiquitous scallion-corn-shiitake-sesame to which we add a poached egg. Just lovely. There’s also a spicy abura soba that piles on all the goodies sans broth. Why you’d want to do that I’ll never know, but it’s an option for the soup phobic.
What’s wonderful about the crowd at Ichicoro is its diversity. The restaurant’s filled with Asians celebrating traditions from a shared culinary history, as well as westerners of every ethnic and cultural heritage who know a good thing when they taste it. And that’s hip enough for me.
Jon Palmer Claridge dines anonymously when reviewing. Check out the explanation of his rating system.
