Guchi’s is not the only new late-night ramen in town. Uni Sashimi Bar at Clio in Back Bay began serving two ramen dishes this month, a traditional bowl with pork and another called umami with barbecued eel; they are served until 2 a.m. some nights ($10 a bowl). This week, Myers + Chang in the South End added a shrimp and tofu ramen ($12) to its lunch menu after testing it as a special. In Wellesley, Blue Ginger’s lunch menu has offered three ramen soups ($12) for two years.
“Ramen is the new black,’’ writes Joanne Chang, the chef and co-owner of Myers + Chang, in an e-mail. Sous chef Kevin Rafferty created the bowl after hearing excitement build over Guchi’s ramen. Chef Chris Gould at Clio says that owner and chef Ken Oringer has wanted to serve a ramen for years. The restaurant’s recent remodeling paved the way to serve the bowls in the more informal downstairs Uni bar area.
Ramen’s appeal is that it’s “comfort food that has a complex craft behind it - sort of a chef’s artful take on what he thinks makes the bowl work, within some tradition,’’ Grant Cook of Arlington, a Chowhound contributor, writes in an e-mail.
Guchi’s Midnight Ramen at first was not intended for the public, but for other chefs after restaurants closed. The idea developed when Yukihiro Kawaguchi, a.k.a. “Guchi,’’ who works at O Ya with O’Leary, were having a drink after work last summer. Kawaguchi, a native of Japan, craved a bowl of ramen. “The evolution of the idea was: Hungry chefs know a group of hungry chefs. Let’s do this for our industry friends,’’ says Tracy Chang, a former O Ya chef and the midnight logistics coordinator.
