#126: Ramen Tatsu-ya

The Bar

Ramen Tatsu-Ya. 1600 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 12/12/18 @ 8pm.

The Drink

Red Beard. Rye whiskey, red shiso, pomegranate, ginger, citrus. $10.

Much like at many of these bars, the cashier/bartender immediately thought to direct us to the special menu when asked for the drink that best represented the establishment. I was half-expecting them to suggest the shochu-based option, given its relative rarity and greater connection to Japan, but I enjoyed my whiskey-based special just the same. When you see a rye whiskey-based cocktail, you naturally think to compare it to an Old-Fashioned, but this really didn't taste anything like that, thanks to the other ingredients. Shiso is a member of the mint family, used in cocktails for the flavor and color, and it gave a nice cool offset to the bite of the rye. Ginger is slightly less unusual, though it's also not your average cocktail glass inhabitant, and it helps fill out a robust range of taste from the sharpness of the rye and the brightness of the shiso all the way through to the sweetness of the citrus and pomegranate.

The Crew

Kyle, Aaron.

Notes

Ramen Tatsu-Ya is locally famous in Austin for being one of the first places to get real "authentic" Japanese ramen, an interesting concept in its own right. There is a long and fascinating story to be told about how the varying cuisines of Asia have been accorded greater or lesser status in the US based on the historical timing and composition of the individual waves of immigrants from those countries. Japanese restaurants in the US have long enjoyed a price premium over other cuisines due to the perceived higher status of Japanese food, but Austin did not have many Asians for most of its history, and so we didn't have a lot of Asian restaurants, even for such a humble everyman food like ramen. Now we're bigger, richer, and more diverse, and when we finally got Ramen Tatsu-Ya in 2012 it was an immediate hit. In fact, it was such a big success that just 4 years after it opened it was hailed as the #1 ramen restaurant in America, which might be some more absurd Austin hyperbole ("Austintation"), but that it placed at all tells you something about our transformation in just the past few years.

This is the 4th installment of their rapidly growing empire, and it maintains the excellence of their ramen while affording a bit more space and a better drink menu than the OG location up on 183. This location replaces Qui, and they even expanded next door with Domo Alley-Gato, which we had visited a few hours ago while waiting for this place to open up. Domo Alley-Gato is a bit more suited to sitting and drinking than Ramen Tatsu-Ya is, as this place has a bit more of the "quick in and out ramen joint" vibe, but do not miss their ramen - if you remember the slim pickings for ramen in 90s Austin it will seem like it came for another planet, and even if you were fortunate enough to grow up in another place with more ramen I'm assured it's still quite worthy of a stop. I've never eaten at any of the other places on that ramen list, or been to Japan at all for that matter, but Ramen Tatsu-Ya is just fine with me all the same. I'm told that in Japan, ramen joints are among the most treasured drunk food establishments, so how thoughtful of Ramen Tatsu-Ya to place Austin best ramen in such close proximity to Austin's greatest drinking corridor.