Without realizing the sheer cliffs that a man can fall off if he is careless, I made a half-thought-out decision to review “the ramen in Omaha.” Living in Omaha all of my life, I hadn’t seen many ramen restaurants, and as such, it was then believed that the process would be simple and quick. Off-hand I knew of three, which I had been to prior. Alas, though I knew that Omaha (minus the metro) was rated highly for the number of restaurants-per-person, I had not considered the size of the task which I had set before me.

At the high-end, foodylics.com says that Omaha has 1633 restaurants for the city-proper of around 500,000 people. There is also the 2025 U.S. News and World report which said Omaha was the ‘hottest’ housing market in the United States. Redfin data reported that it only took 26 days on average to sell a home in Omaha, while for the rest of the U.S., those numbers were closer to sixty. It would be no surprise that there would be many restaurants opening up… except to me, who miscalculated. There isn’t any possible way to get my money back, though in all honesty, I enjoyed most everywhere I went.

Ika San Ramen and Izakaya (five locations of these around Omaha), Jinya Ramen Bar, Hokkaido Ramen House, Rizin Japanese Ramen, Akarui, Yoshi-Ya, Gugu Ramen, Otoro Sushi & Ramen, Tomo Sushi & Ramen, Ahi Sushi & Ramen, Koen Japanese BBQ and Izakaya… The list only continues. Initially, when I realized that the article (and my bank account) wouldn’t be able to cover every single location in one season, I decided to narrow my scope first to just those with ramen in their name – and I would cut myself off when autumn ended. Unlike previous food reviews, I was more nervous about this one as I wasn’t reviewing multiple dishes from one place, nor did I intend to review the whole of the restaurant, so I worried that my opinion wouldn’t be full.

Ramen is the perfect food to eat when the chill is biting outside. Noodles, eggs, meat, pork broth (or miso, vegetable), seaweed, bean sprouts, and spices are all fantastic, healthy ingredients. It, alongside sushi, is perhaps the most well-known Japanese cuisine throughout the world.

As I get into the meat of this article, I will not have the time to cover every single joint, and instead, I will cover the ones that stand out the most for being not so great, or great; the rest, which I don’t mention, can be considered to have good ramen.

Starting us off is “Hokkaido Ramen House” just off 72nd. While there wasn’t any particular problem with their ramen, nor anything to write home about, its decor was geared to a different crowd. Anime posters and even T-shirts for sale made for an awkward experience. If you are looking to expand your child’s palette into other cultures, or just Japanese cuisine, then you could perhaps take them here. However, I would not recommend it for a date or business meeting.

Farther away, near 144th and West Center is ‘Otoro Sushi and Ramen’. Inside the restaurant does nothing interesting with its interior, which makes it easy to rate just the food. Though its menu did seem to lean into being a sushi joint, it did have ‘ramen’ in the name and thus made the list. I ordered a spicy shrimp dish and was greeted with a bigger bowl than was standard, as well as a really cool old-time wooden soup ladle. Seaweed, eggs, shrimp, fishcakes, bean sprouts, and a tiny bit of corn were all richly colored against a spice-dyed red broth.

The shrimp was spicy – not to the level of a volcano, not for anyone who hates spicy things – but they were great; shrimp that doesn’t come across as ‘slimy’ is already done well. Purely out of chance, I saved the egg for after the shrimp and was rewarded with a base that seemed to absorb much of the spice in my mouth. I can always take-or-leave a little bit of corn in any meal, but the seaweed, fishcakes, and bean sprouts brought the end of the dish home. For a spice lover in West Omaha, ‘Otoro Sushi and Ramen’ has a good bowl to try.

I had stopped in the Blackstone district and went into ‘Koen Japanese BBQ & Izakaya’ for an unrelated reason. Inside, it was very clean and very modern and plenty of people in business suits were about. As I spoke with the bartender, Josh, and ate some sushi, he asked me what I did for a living, and I told him that I wrote for a paper and worked with children, which led to him asking what I wrote about.

My arm was being twisted behind my back; I was being forced to eat good food and give my opinion on it! Bah! I admitted to Josh that I was working on a ramen article, which is when he told me Koen makes Ramen. So, now I felt indebted to review it, and, unlike the other places, Koen did know I was reviewing it.

They only had one ramen dish on the menu, honestly, a pretty ‘standard’ Tonkotsu bowl (pork), or at least what I thought was ‘standard’. Bubbles rose up and spun in the broth, swirling around the meat and the egg throughout the whole meal, and the pork broth was perfect. It was not too rustic or spicy, not too watery, and even the tiny bit of corn at the bottom, which I usually disregard out of habit, took me aback for its softness.

The Tonkotsu itself was cooked perfectly; what I can only describe as totally comfortable to eat: no flavor or spice was overbearing, yet it was not lost against the backdrop of the rest of the ramen or its noodles. The egg was wonderful, and creamy in texture: ever soft yet without the crumbles. Outshining the shrimp-ramen’s bean sprouts, this Tonkotsu’s legumes were so crisp, even in a bubbling-hot broth, and truthfully, if there was any disappointment, it was that I did not have a second bowl of just them in broth. So it might have been a ‘standard’ dish, but even the noodles were flawless and without any sogginess.

In further honesty, I snuck back in on another day when other staff were there to make sure the food was good, and it was. I have planned another article for Koen.

When speaking to Josh, the bartender, he did point me to “Rizin Ramen" over on Center Street near the interstate. He said it reminded him most of any number of small, authentic Japanese ramen restaurants from his time spent over in Japan. With a bit of sleuthing, I learned later that Rizin was opened by Hidehisa Takahashi, who grew up in the Japanese city of Sapporo. Days later, I went inside and felt like I had stepped into a ‘mom and pop shop’. Quaint and simple, I sat and ordered the miso ramen to review. (Miso is a salt and soy paste which has been fermented for months to years).

The bowl of ramen was plain white porcelain, yet the first spoonful of broth was like slipping into a warm-water spring on a cold day, and the noodles were as filling as honey. A broad cut of pork was hearty, and the bean sprouts like Koen's were crispy and snappy – this is certainly not always the case. Any vegetable steeped for too long will get mushy. There is a perfect moment to submerge them, and Rizin and Koen both met it.

The final ramen restaurant that I chose to note is the ‘Jinya Ramen Bar’ near 72nd and Dodge. As someone had said to me about the restaurant, “Jinya is just so reliable.” Competing with Koen for best interior space, it has a sleek, modern look with a wonderful wooden ramen bar. It is a place I had been to before. Knowing that it was reliably a great dish, I ordered the karaage bowl. Is it cheating… to order Japanese fried chicken in any dish? Maybe. But then again, food doesn’t have boundaries; it just requires cooking times for health reasons.

The karaage was golden that day; perhaps to replace the sun, which slept for the night. Before I could write words for what the rest of the bowl looked like in my little notebook, I devoured the chicken. My chopsticks snapped up piece after piece, and then I realized that I had a job – describing things!

The chicken wasn’t too firm, nor too soft. It was a holiday on a day without one, and a comfortable hand on a full stomach. The karaage was eaten without pause. “It -must- be the best thing in the bowl, no?” My thoughts brooked no room for any counterargument until I ate the egg, which had been soaking up the broth. Condescending thoughts raged through me, “The chicken? A sun? How could I be so dense when the best egg in Omaha is in my mouth?”

Seaweed in the dish helped to cleanse the palate, and the noodles demanded that I slow down to enjoy their wonderful texture. The end of my notes on Jinya’s karaage ramen was as eloquent and verbose as a writer would pen, “Damn, that really hit the spot. Should've slowed down.”

There are plenty of warm meals that one could eat during the winter, but in my mind, soups usually ‘hit the spot’ best. A good soup is not too heavy, and the broth warms a person right up. There are not really ‘restaurants’ for soups, but there is an adjacent food: ramen, and rapidly growing Omaha has many of these wonderful locations.

Austin Petak is an aspiring novelist and freelance journalist who loves seeking stories and the quiet passions of the soul. If you are interested in reaching out to him to cover a story, you may find him at austinpetak@gmail.com.