Kodawari Ramen is located in the Latin Quarter, in the core of universities neighbourhood, so do not be surprised that has a usual 1-1.5 hour queue especially Friday and Saturday night. We went on a week-day evening, at 19:00 in mid February. A short wait of 5 minutes and a 20+ people waiting before me. Note that you will only be seated when all the parties arrive.
The place teleports you back to the 70’s or 80’s back streets of Japan, not that different from Blade Runners feeling, at least for a short while.
How about the food? Actually I kept putting off eating at Kodarwari thinking that it was a bit gimmicky. Food was better than I thought, luckily.
Kurogoma ramen - house speciality : sesame black sauce, garlic and ginger broth with Basque pork chashu. H asked for an extra portion of chicken chashu, nori and tamale (egg).
Niboshi patina ramen - thick reduced broth infused with Japanese sardines and Basque pork chashu with extra slice of pork, tamale and nori. Slight heat with the extra spicy sauce.
Noodles were al dente. Both soup were made with Landes farm chicken, when compared to pork based broth, it is lighter but well balanced. Noodles are house made with Acy Romance wheat (Gilles Matignon’s moulin) which they claimed suitable for making ramen noodle. They stress on the menu - No MSG. We will be back for seafood dashi and other ramen. H likes his bowl here, but he likes the Hakata Choten’s fatty pork garlic broth more. Although personally, I feel HC can be a bit heavy, and the execution varies a lot between a Sunday night and a busy Saturday night, for example.
Yuzu mojito
Kodawari Ramen
29 rue Mazarine
75006 Paris
Opens every day:
12:00 - 14:30, 19:00 - 22:00
http://www.kodawari-ramen.com
No reservation
Edited: Should be Quartier latin not le Marais.
