Ramen chefs across Iowa are making magic with noodles and broth

Over the last few years, Iowa has seen a range of ramen-focused shops open, from DSM Ramen Club, a monthly ramen pop-up in Des Moines; to Ramen Belly, an intimate shop in Iowa City’s Peninsula neighborhood; to Broth Lab 641, an Asian-influenced restaurant in Fairfield; plus various pop-ups throughout Eastern Iowa.

Each of these newer businesses have successfully crafted ramen in their own way, which makes sense, given the seemingly endless variations on the dish across the world. Edwin Lee, a cook at the Webster, leads the restaurant’s annual ramen pop-up and has been preparing the dish for about five years. He started making ramen at Pullman Bar & Diner, another downtown Iowa City spot, where he played an integral role in establishing their regular ramen program. Now Lee collaborates with the Webster team, specifically owner and chef Sam Gelman, who worked directly with David Chang of Momofuku for over a decade. (The highly acclaimed restaurant brand’s name is a reference to Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant ramen.)

For two nights, Lee prepared two traditional popular styles of ramen for over 100 Webster pop-up-goers. The first type was Tantanmen ramen, a style with even more Chinese influence than other ramens. It consists of a pork broth, Sichuan peppercorns, red chili flakes, chili oils and pickled mustard greens. Lee also chose to offer tori paitan, a chicken white-broth ramen.

When making ramen, Lee’s main goal is to pay respect to the original dish. He admits that he’s not necessarily reinventing the wheel. “I’d much rather do something very true to its roots, something very familiar, more popular styles of ramen and bring that forward.”

In addition, he believes that good food is all about balance — those multiple components working together to form a unique flavor.

Avid noodle-soup slurpers, take note of Ramen Belly, a quaint Iowa City shop opened in 2021. Founders John Lieu and Andy Diep have been around the food scene for years, having opened the original Takanami Sushi Bar in downtown Iowa City in 2003. Now, years later and in a new neighborhood, they’re focusing mostly on ramen.

The restaurant’s menu allows guests to choose a base, known as a “tare” — a Japanese word that translates to “dipping sauce.” The tare is a concentrated flavor base that’s added to the serving bowl before the other ramen components. At Ramen Belly, there are three options available. The first two pork-based ramen dishes are classic styles: the house (a miso and pork base) and the classic tonkotsu. The third style, MaMa, is a beef-based homage to Lieu’s Vietnamese upbringing.

“In Vietnam, there’s a dish called ‘bo kho,’ which is a Vietnamese beef stew,” Lieu said. “It’s made from different types of spices, tomato paste and beef concentrate. MaMa ramen is inspired by this dish, a comfort food that your mom would make for you.”

Ramen Belly is a suitable for a group, but it’s also the perfect place to dine solo. The restaurant’s concept is fast-casual, inspired by small ramen shops in Japan, where folks typically venture in individually for a fast meal.

“Ramen shops in Japan are really tiny, maybe 10 to 15 seats, and they only serve ramen,” Lieu said. “You put money in a vending machine, get a ticket, sit down, slurp the ramen in 10 minutes and then you’re out the door. We wanted to create that concept in a way here.”

If you happen to be in the Des Moines area, be sure to check out the DSM Ramen Club, a popular pop-up ramen business currently putting on monthly events in different locations around the city. T. Myers started the business in 2019, initially just serving bowls of ramen to friends for fun before expanding to host small dinners at venues like the Art Terrarium, Bellhop and Allora Cafe, and even selling food takeout-style for a time at Gas Lamp.

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Myers began making their own ramen noodles from scratch — a feat in its own right — and then decided to experiment with broths, first mastering tonkotsu ramen. They quickly shifted to creating more fusion-focused ramen recipes, paying close attention to flavors that are trending.

The style of ramen at DSM Ramen Club is best described as out-of-the-ordinary. Myers, who is Korean American, was served Shin Ramyun by their Korean mother, often enhanced with peas, a hot dog and a Kraft Single. Growing up surrounded by fusion cuisine impacted the way Myers cooks and experiments in the kitchen today.

“Ramen is kind of like pasta: You have your origins, and then you have people that take those origins and make it their own,” Myers said. “It doesn’t make it any less authentic. We play with traditional flavors, but we also like to take flavors that people love so much and make it into a ramen broth.”

One of the club’s most popular dishes is the birria ramen, which is beef brisket braised in chilis and spices, drowned in consomme and topped with pickled red onions, queso fresco, onions and cilantro. A mini quesadilla is served on the side.

“It’s not as easy as getting birria, consomme and throwing it in a bowl. There’s a lot more thought process making fusion food like this, and it’s something that everyone can sit down and enjoy eating,” Myers said.

By the end of 2023, Myers will shift DSM Ramen Club from a pop-up endeavor to a permanent sit-down restaurant in Highland Park. They’ll be opening the restaurant with long-time business partner Josh Hake, and the menu will include ramen and tacos, calling back to Myers’ previous experience cooking up gourmet Korean street tacos for Moar Tacos. The best way to stay in the loop about DSM Ramen Club, they said, is on Instagram, @dsmramenclub.

Another ramen hotspot is Broth Lab 641, which opened in Fairfield in July 2022. Owners Camp and Teah Boswell operated a restaurant with a similar concept in Asheville, North Carolina, before moving to Iowa during the COVID-19 pandemic. Camp is a chef from Alabama with a background in Southern high-end fine dining and classic French cooking.

The pair share a love and deep appreciation for Asian cuisine, and they always seek it out when traveling. Camp began experimenting with ramen at home, off the clock. They realized Asheville’s thriving food scene lacked a ramen shop and decided to host pop-ups to share Camp’s creations, ultimately leading to a restaurant.

“Our tagline is ‘ramen-ish’ or ‘ramen with a twist,’” Camp said. “It’s in the realm of ramen, but we are by no means trying to be an authentic ramen shop. We’re authentically inauthentic in our ramen because it’s really something that’s our own.”

Camp’s ramen process is notably different from the way ramen is traditionally prepared. When cooking Broth Lab’s tonkotsu, for example, instead of following the tradition of blanching and scraping all the bits off the bones first, he’ll leave them as-is and place them in the oven to roast at high temperatures until they caramelize. Then, he’ll begin making a broth with the roasted bones, and eventually will add in another ingredient like lime zest for a lift in flavor.

“If you feed that to a purist, they’ll say this is not tonkotsu, but it’s our version of a tonkotsu,” Camp explained. “For me, it has lots of flavor, it’s more balanced, and that’s what I’m trying to achieve in all the dishes we put out.”

Guests can order one of the chef’s favorite bowls or choose to experiment with their own creation. Customizable bowls offer myriad choices of broths, sauces, noodles or rice, protein and toppings. The menu is extensive, including their zesty and unconventional tonkotsu broth and other dishes, like lobster red curry and cashew milk and mushroom paitan. Toppings range from flavorful vegetables like Sichuan broccolini to garlic chili eggplant and fried okra to jammy shoyu egg.

“I definitely sprinkle my Southern roots in there,” Camp said. “We’ve got fried okra on the menu, and it’s buttermilk soaked in cornmeal batter — the same way my mom did it when I was growing up as a kid.”

Broth Lab frequently runs specials on the weekends, offering entrees that further incorporate Camp’s Southern cooking style. Expect creative, experimental dishes beyond ramen, like karaage chicken, miso mac and cheese and braised collards with black vinegar and garlic.

While this list of ramen spots is by no means comprehensive, it provides a promising start for any Iowan’s quest for quality, truly satisfying bowls of ramen. Keep an open mind and don’t be afraid to venture into a pop-up’s innovative new offerings. No two bowls of ramen will taste the same, and that seems to be the point.

This article was originally published in the 2023 Bread & Butter dining guide.