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Rakkan Ramen is an outstanding chic little ramen shop serving authentic Japanese ramen, rice bowls, sushi rolls, baos, gyoza, and other dishes. It's the newest Houston location from the Rakkan franchise that originates from Japan. Notably, all their ramen broths are vegetarian, and vegan options are also available. While we were skeptical that they would still be as flavorful as bone broths, we were blown away by the depth of flavor!
Vibe: Rakkan ramen is located in a little strip of Asian restaurants off of I-10, close to Katy Asia Town. It's pretty new, and we went around 2pm on a Saturday for a BOGO special they were having. The restaurant is kinda small and beautifully decorated with a modern aesthetic. There's high tables, standard tables, and some bar seating in front of the kitchen. We sat at the bar area.
Service: The servers and hostess were very kind, quick, and welcoming. We added our names to the waitlist and waited about 5-7 minutes since it was pretty busy. If there's a longer line when you go, you could go next door and grab a drink from Long coffee - we saw a couple others do that. The food came our pretty quickly after ordering, and the server did a good job explaining the menu and the deal since it was our first time.
Food: Rakkan Ramen prides itself on its umami factor, one of the five basic tastes. It's that element of savoriness or depth of flavor that you often get from Japanese foods, especially ramen. However, their ramen is made with a vegetable broth and no meat or seafood, which is not usually done. We were pretty skeptical that the soup would attain the same level of flavor without meat (like our favorite pork bone broth ramen, tonkotsu), but we were blown away by how delicous and truly umami these soups were!
We ordered the spicy beef gyoza, Garnet ramen, and Quartz ramen. The gyoza came right out of the fryer and were served with a lemon wedge, a dab of red spicy paste, and a soy-based dipping sauce with green onions. The gyoza were steaming hot, exterior was super crunchy, inside of the wrapper was soft, and the ratio of meat and veggies inside was perfect. The dipping sauce was incredible, and had soy sauce, citrus (yuzu?), and some other things that added further complexity to the flavor. The red paste had a good spicy kick and a surprising amount of flavor. I actually ended up liking the dipping sauce and red paste so much that I ended up dropping some in my ramen to further amp up the flavor. The garnet ramen had some miso in the creamy base, came with two slices of chashu, a marinated egg, bamboo shoots, and green onion. The quartz was the same, but we substituted the chashu for chicken kaarage. The portions are huge! The broths were full of umami and depth, and super creamy like tonkotsu. We really liked it! Chashu was tender and juicy. The kaarage was also juicy and delicious. We thought it wouldn't be that good since it wouldn't be crunchy anymore in the soup, but we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was still great! It tasted like it was also marinated because it had some additional flavors, like something citrusy and savory. The egg was cooked perfectly, and not too sweet in the center. I tried the chili oil provided at the table, and it paired well with the soup too. It has a lot of flavor and is actually kinda spicy, some sesame oil notes in there. Interestingly, the noodles are whole wheat so they are healthier than the traditional noodle. However, they still tasted great and were cooked perfectly.
Perhaps because of how the soup is 100% plant-based and the noodles are whole wheat, we did not feel super bloated or full after eating them unlike when we eat at other more traditional ramen shops. I'd imagine this soup is also much healthier and has less calories, which is a big plus with ramen since it is usually so calorie-dense!
Overall, everything we had at Rakkan Ramen was extraordinary and we will definitely be back for more. If you love ramen, you must give this place a try! This place is Let's Eat Houston approved ✅️.
