Wu-Rons, a new ramen shop in Southeast Portland, serves a Nagahama-style bowl with thin noodles, thick pork belly and seas of sesame seeds and green onion on a tonkotsu broth.Michael Russell | The Oregonian

There’s a 15 minute spot in the cramped parking lot outside Wu-Rons, a new ramen shop on Southeast Water Avenue. Normally, that would be cutting it thin for Portland ramen. Despite its global reputation as the ultimate pit-stop meal, famously meant to be inhaled in as little as five minutes and sold via ticket-dispensing vending machine at even the best Japanese shops, local ramen restaurants tend to be more full-service operations, with longer menus and slower pacing. At Wu-Rons, 15 minutes gives you time to spare.

Wu-Rons opened last month with just one ramen on the menu, a Nagahama-style bowl with thin noodles arranged under floating fields of green onion and sesame seeds on a tonkotsu (pork) and soy-based broth less milky white than cappuccino beige. Toppings include a jammy-yolked egg and three slabs of pork belly cut thick and seared on one side. Two weeks ago, the restaurant added a Sapporo-influenced miso-pork broth ramen with butter and shucked corn and a spicy vegetarian tan tan built on a seaweed-mushroom base (all $15). Of the three, the Nagahama-style is still the one to know.

Unlike Afuri, Kizuki and the other Tokyo-based ramen chains to land here over the years, Wu-Rons took a meandering path to Portland. According to early reports, owners Shintaro Yamada (who hails from Fukuoka’s Nagahama district) and chef Kimitaka “Taka” Terashita (who comes from Sapporo) previously ran Bow Ramen in Midtown Manhattan. During the pandemic, the duo decamped for Charlotte, where they opened the first Wu-Rons and a spin-off shop, Saru. The Wu-Rons name comes from a manga, Tokyo Tribes, and “The Warriors”-style Japanese hip-hop musical it inspired. The restaurant even has its own J-Hop Spotify playlist.

Wu-Rons new Southeast Portland ramen shop sits in the shadow of the Hawthorne Bridge's eastern span.Michael Russell | The Oregonian

Even seasoned ramen fans might be unfamiliar with the style. Outside of Japan, tonkotsu broth is nearly synonymous with Hakata, a style named, like Nagahama, for a neighborhood in the Kyushu Island city of Fukuoka, and one that has spawned a pair of global chains in Ippudo and Ichiran.

These days, Fukuoka’s various ramen styles have merged, the names marking a distinction without much of a difference. But when the Nagahama style first emerged in the early 1950s, it had its own calling card. As the story goes, late-night, open-air stalls called yatai cut their noodles ultra thin and cooked them in small batches to reduce cooking time for the hungry, time-pressed workers at the nearby fish market. According to The Japan Times, serious Nagahama heads still order their noodles “kona-otoshi” — barely rinsed in boiling water. Nagahama is also credited as the birthplace of kaedama, the practice of ordering a second round of noodles to go with your still-warm broth.

Besides the squeeze bottles of fresh chile sauce that bring a beguilingly bright note to your bowl, you won’t find much in the way of add-ons or substitutions at Wu-Rons, at least so far. Let’s hope that doesn’t change too much. Right now, the cook times are Fukuoka-fast, even on busier days, when bowls of thin, firm noodles perfect for slurping up mouthfuls of surprisingly light broth hit the pickup counter before you’ve had a chance to find a seat.

Long term, a look at the owners’ previous shops could point to the shape Portland’s menu might take as the restaurant evolves. In New York and Charlotte, Bow Ramen, Wu-Rons and Saru variously served edamame, gyoza and pork belly buns, as well as the usual ramen toppings (sprouts, bamboo shoots, black garlic oil, etc.) as well as a critically acclaimed chile pepper ramen made popular at Terashita’s previous gig, Kuu Ramen.

When it closed in 2020, Noraneko, the first restaurant at this Southeast Water Avenue address, was the last remnant of Biwa, itself a trail-blazing izakaya home to one of Portland’s first good bowls of ramen. The pandemic took that ramen away, along with some tasty boiled gyoza, a quirky beverage menu with both highballs and fresh-squeezed juice and one of Portland’s best and only true late-night dining destinations. But it left behind an ideal location, huddled under an urban bridge that, were this Japan, might shelter a dozen open-air food vendors sending grilled chicken smoke up into the rafters of the overpass.

From the parking lot, you can squint and imagine you’re in Fukuoka. Inside Wu-Rons, the ramen comes out fast enough you just might believe it.

Details: Wu-Rons is open for lunch from noon to 3 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday and dinner from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday-Sunday at 1430 S.E. Water Ave., wurons.com

— Michael Russell, mrussell@oregonian.com, @tdmrussell

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