Restaurants' hearty ramens are far from college fare

Thanks to inventor Momofuku Ando, we know what ramen isn't. Once a humble but hearty soup exported from China to Japan, ramen became lumped into a category of cheap instant-noodle dishes packed with a lab's worth of chemicals.

But just as the American public has rediscovered hamburgers after decades of eating cheap, corrupted versions from the fast-food giants, made-from-scratch ramen is enjoying a new spot on restaurant menus.

Three recent developments stand to elevate ramen's stature further in Philadelphia.

First, Ramen Boy, the city's first restaurant dedicated to ramen, opened this month in Chinatown. [Note: It is due to reopen Thursday, Feb. 23 after a gas-line issue.] Second, business partners Shawn Darragh and chef Ben Puchowitz of Matyson restaurant in Center City held a "pop-up" version of their proposed eatery, Roundeye Noodle Bar, in a bid to attract investors. Third, almost every chef today is cooking with pork belly, which many ramen soups include.

Chefs are creating ramens with aesthetics as well as taste in mind.

There's no fixed formula for the broth (though it's usually pork), the noodles (generally wheat), or the toppings. And sometimes - such as at Tampopo, which offers a humble ramen for $8.50 but only at the University City location - you have to scour a menu for it.

It is front and center at Ramen Boy, on Ninth Street in Chinatown, a bright, narrow storefront where the ramens are $13 and under. The menu includes a vegetarian ramen with soy milk and miso, as well as gyoza (dumplings) and traditional tonkatsu (pork) ramen .

At Doma, on Callowhill Street in Franklintown, the ramen served at lunch is a work of art - a tasty bowl of pork broth, egg noodles, two colorful "fish cakes" (naruto), a tangle of enoki mushrooms, greens, a soft-cooked egg, and two slices of pork belly. At $15, it rivaled the most expensive ramen I found - the pork belly ramen at Morimoto on Chestnut Street.

Morimoto, the glitzy Japanese destination co-owned by the Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, offers two other ramens at lunch - a vegetarian, a chicken noodle, and the pork belly (which is available with pork or soy broth).

Morimoto chef Chris Greway, trained in ramen by Morimoto himself, uses soy-cured eggs, white scallion, pickled turnip, pickled red ginger, garlic-sesame oil, and four generous pieces of pork belly.