Ramen Burger
Smorgasburg
90 Kent Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211
THE CONQUEST
If you have yet to hear about the newest Food craze coming out of NYC, the Ramen Burger, you’re either living under a rock or worse yet, Ohio. Let’s back up.
Second generation Japanese-American Keizo Shimamato is the author of “Go Ramen!” a long running blog with a focus on a single food item, (sound familiar?) Ramen. His passion for the Noodle soup lead him to Japan where he became the man behind the popular Tokyo Ramen spot, Bassanova. In 2012, film maker Michael McAteer condensed Keizo’s life of Ramen into a 7 and a half minute film called “Ramen Dreams.” The film received the royal treatment at the 2012 edition of the NYC Food Film Fest. They recreated the Bassanova – Keizo experience in a movie theater serving people while watching the film. People’s minds were blown and Keizo and Michael were asked to be a part of both the Chicago & Charleston Food Film Festivals that followed NYC.
Earlier this summer, Keizo moved back to NYC with a gleam in his eye. That gleam: The Ramen Burger.
When Keizo was planning his launch of this revolutionary Food mashup along with film maker Kristoffer Brearton, he called yours truly for help with the Beef. After much talk of umami pops, juiciness, flavoring, size, cooking methods and tastes, I pointed Keizo to the fantastic folks at Burger Maker. These guys make some of the best, freshest and most delicious Beef patties and blends in the all the land. I knew they would deliver the goods for the Ramen Burger. From there I suggest Keizo have a conversation with the people from GreenDustries, makes of the PleatPak™. It’s a unique Sandwich cover that is easy to use, retains heat and keeps messiness off of one’s shirt. It’s perfect for serving them while your walking around a flea market like Smorgasburg, which so far, is the only place you can get a Ramen Burger.
THE BURGER
So what is a Ramen Burger you ask and why have people been waiting in line sometimes up to 3 hours to get one?
1. Two Buns formed from freshly cut Ramen Noodles from Sun Noodle
2. A 4 ounce USDA Prime Ground Beef Chuck Patty with a 75/25 lean to fat content ratio from Burger Maker
3. Fresh Argula and Scallions
4. Keizo’s secret Shoyu Ramen Sauce
The Noodle Buns are cooked on a flat top griddle, along with the Beef Patties, which goes between the Noodle Buns with the Fresh Veggies and sauce.
Yes, it’s damn good. But how do you make it better? You get NYC’s “Expert Burger Taster” to come and cook them. Which answers the question that’s burning in everyone’s mind:
So how does one get skip the line privileges?
BE THE GRILL CHEF!
Yup. Once again, that’s yours truly, wearing my “Slapron,” getting ready to grill 300 Burger Maker patties at Smorgasburg. I got there at 10 am and there was already a line more than 100 people long waiting to get their mitts on one of them. It was an absolute pleasure and sincerely a lot of fun working with Keizo, Kris and the rest of the crew. This will not be the last you see of me when it comes to Ramen Burgers.
Did you get one? How did I do on the grill?
At one point someone came up and traded us a Cronut for a Ramen Burger. Keizo and I split it.
Then I split the Cronut and inserted a Ramen Patty and topped it with the Shoyu Sauce. BAM! Take that hype makers!
-Rev
Be sure to follow @RamenBurger on Twitter / Instagram and like them on Facebook to keep up on updates and appearances.
THE BURGER COUNTQUEST
648 Burgers
August 17, 2013
