Bringing in my first bowl of ramen for 2018 at Mensho Tokyo in San Francisco! It wasn’t planned but it seamlessly fell into place while I was in the city with my girlfriends for a race. We had planned on a day of shopping after visiting the race expo and then going to the Imperial Spa for a Korean body scrub. My friends were in for a life altering experience of shedding dead skin and a promised bowl of ramen. There was a ramen shop a block away from our hotel that stayed open till 1 am and so we planned to go there afterwards. As we drove on Geary Street to the spa I noticed a line of people outside a restaurant. It was Michelin rated Mensho Tokyo. Hubby and I met a young Japanese guy a while back wine tasting in Napa and he said that Mensho had the best ramen in San Francisco. He also said to be prepared for a crazy long wait which could be up to 2 hours. I like ramen but not that much. I mentioned it to the gals and suggested we check it out on our way back to the hotel after our spa treatment. Our fallback would be the other ramen place.
Scrubbed squeaky clean and feeling relaxed we were hungry for some noodles as we drove to Mensho. Luck on our side it was close to 10 pm and there was a short line and within five minutes we were seated at the communal table ready for some ramen. We ordered four different types of ramen and each of them perfectly plated and unique. I ordered the tori paitan ramen which had thick curly noodles with plenty of spring to them in a creamy chicken soup broth. The ramen was topped with pork and duck chashu and garnished with menma, chives, kale, katsuoboshi sauce drizzled on some cabbage, thinly shaved crispy burdock which was so delicious I could have eaten it on its own and a whole soft-boiled egg hidden in the broth that was absolutely perfect. We oohed and aahed as we slurped our noodles feeling fortunate and satiated at the same time.
Our late night carbo loading fueled us well for the race that we decided that the scrub, ramen and run was on the agenda for next year. The ramen was so memorable I’m already thinking about my next bowl at Mensho.
Mensho Tokyo
672 Geary St
San Francisco, CA
(415) 800-8345
