Mensho Tokyo’s new plan: a ramen to-go spot
Mensho Tokyo, one of the Bay Area’s most popular ramen shops, is opening a second San Francisco restaurant with an emphasis on miso broths and takeout meals.
Jikasei Mensho opens Wednesday inside the Twitter building at 1355 Market St. One focus for the restaurant is fermentation. Here, the broths are made from a tare sauce that blends two Japanese red misos aged in kioke barrels, wooden barrels used to make soy sauce, for over a year. There are five ramens on the opening menu, including a miso vegan ramen, a creamy broth topped with blackened garlic and garlic chips, and a miso curry ramen inspired by trips the owners took to New Delhi, where Mensho plans to open a restaurant.
Every ramen can be customized with toppings and condiments, from pork chashu and scallops to seasonal, local vegetables like Brussels sprouts and golden beets. The noodles will be made fresh on a machine brought from Japan,
which is on view in the restaurant.
Another key component is takeout ramen, which is notoriously challenging to execute. The noodles often turn gummy and the broth cools down past ideal temperatures. Mensho Tokyo in the Tenderloin does not offer takeout. But for Jikasei Mensho,
located in a food court with communal seating, Mensho ramen master Tomoharu Shono spent weeks testing the ramen to ensure it could sit for as long as an hour in a to-go cup. He’s tweaked various factors in the noodle-making process, from how long the dough sits to how many times sheets of dough go
through the machine, to try to preserve texture.
Staff will ask customers if they plan to eat the ramen immediately; if they’re waiting any longer than 15 minutes, the noodles will be served in separate containers. There’s some seating at the Mid-Market food court for dining in person, but all ramen will
still be served in takeout containers.
“The way the ramen is constructed here is different” from the original Mensho restaurant, said co-owner Abram Plaut. “Because of the pandemic, and there’s so much focus right now on to-go food and delivery — it’s time that we try to take that next step and create a high-quality ramen that’s able to be taken away, which is very, very difficult to do.”
The menu will expand as the restaurant gets settled, Plaut said. Shono plans to experiment with different kinds of noodles, such as gingerflavored ones or green noodles colored with kale or wheatgrass powder.
Mensho Tokyo, a popular Tokyo ramen chain, opened its first U.S. location on Geary Street in 2016 to acclaim. People lined up in particular for the restaurant’s creamy tori paitan ramen topped with fatty pork and duck chashu. Chronicle restaurant critic Soleil Ho named Mensho Tokyo as among the best Japanese restaurants in the Bay Area. This spring, the owners expanded with an outpost in San Rafael.
Jikasei Mensho will be open initially from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. TuesdaySaturday, but Plaut said they will later expand the hours and days of operation.