100 Favorite Dishes, No. 96: Tonkotsu Kuru at Ichiro Ramen Shop

Leading up to September's Best of Dallas® 2017 issue, we're sharing (in no particular order) our 100 Favorite Dishes, the Dallas entrées, appetizers and desserts that really stuck with us this year. When it arrives in the table, it already feels like a treat: a steamy bowl of color and...

By Beth Rankin

May 5, 2017

This tonkotsu ramen with black garlic oil ($10.95) at Ichiro Ramen is a big, creamy bowl of umami. Beth Rankin

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Leading up to September's Best of Dallas® 2017 issue, we're sharing (in no particular order) our 100 Favorite Dishes, the Dallas entrées, appetizers and desserts that really stuck with us this year.

When it arrives in the table, it already feels like a treat: a steamy bowl of color and texture, yellow corn and bright green scallions and the rich orange of a runny egg yolk, all of it set against a dark, rich liquid swirling with puddles of black garlic oil.

The tonkotsu kuro ramen at Ichiro Ramen Shop on Maple is a bowl of pure umami, a soul-warming exploration of comfort. Sweet corn, napa cabbage, green onion, seaweed and half a soft-boiled egg swim in the magical broth alongside fatty pork belly, but it's the addition of black garlic oil drizzled on top that really makes this dish sing. The menu at Ichiro is small, which is all the better; we've been back three times and have yet to stray from the tonkotsu kuro, and that's not likely to change on our next three visits, either.

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Beth Rankin is an Ohio native and Cicerone-certified beer server who specializes in social media, food and drink, travel and news reporting. Her belief system revolves around the significance of Topo Chico, the refusal to eat crawfish out of season and the importance of local and regional foodways.

Contact: Beth Rankin

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