Leah S.
Yelp
My husband is on a roll picking amazing restaurants for us. While we were in Providence for the day, I picked a place that was unfortunately closed for Labor Day, and hubby suggested Ebisu as an alternative and totally NAILED IT!!!
When we drove up, I was wary, given the first impression from the street. It's not much from the outside, but don't let that dissuade you from giving it a try! Inside it was calm, dark and smelled like miso, so I was pretty excited. We were the only ones there when we arrived, and were seated immediately.
The menu was great, and I loved their "build your own ramen" options. They also had a specials board with awesome desserts, apps and some seasonal drinks. We were starving so everything looked good to us. We asked the waitress/manager for some extra time.
To start, we ordered a side of the shiso and garlic fried rice, a thai iced tea with coconut milk, and for our mains we both built our own ramen. The rice was packed with flavor, and was really delicious. Thai iced tea is never a bad decision, and despite the coconut milk getting clumpy, it was refreshing.
Ramen is really hard to do well in my opinion, but this place offers 30 hour tonkatsu broth and it is incredible. We both ordered that as our base, he got bean thread noodles and I opted for the traditional ramen. His toppings were more meat and eggs, and I got bok choi, house made delicious kimchi (delicious and fresh), corn and mushrooms.
For dessert, we were vacillating between the halo-halo, which is something I love and haven't had since I lived in Hawaii, and the miso doughnuts. Because I hadn't ever heard of a miso doughnut, we went for it. WOW its amazing. I loved the combination of the umami of the white miso and the sweet savory combo with the ice cream and caramel flavors. It's like kettle corn but with a hip Asian flair. It's awesome they took this culinary risk and it absolutely paid off.
The ramen was the best I've had in the area other than Boston. The doughnut was like nothing I've ever had in my life and I can't wait to return to have more of both! Prices were reasonable for the size of the servings and the amazing flavor they manage to pack into each dish. I'm not sure how everything else on the menu is, but I can't stop thinking about those flavors! Service was friendly and fast, and the place was clean, inviting, and surprisingly gourmet. Solid 5 stars.