Satori has grown since my last visit half a year ago, with an expanded menu (finally) featuring shoyu ramen and miso ramen in addition to their standard mix of chicken paitan, tonkotsu, and aburasoba. Run by Nishimura Seigo, a graduate of the Tokyo Sushi Academy and who formerly worked a the Michelin-starred Cagen in New York, Satori is located in Columbus’s North Market–think Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal market on a much smaller scale and minus the transportation links–where there is plenty of eager and hungry foot traffic. However, being situated in a market stall also carries with it significant restrictions and implications on its food and presentation, which is likely why Satori has not been able to offer a non-veg shoyu ramen until now.
This lack of space plays out in a number of ways. Lacking a secure space where Satori can make keep pork or chicken simmering in stock pots for for hours, even days on end means that much of the real prep work for the broths and (presumably) chashu is done in an off-site commissary. There is only room for 3-4 burners at Satori’s North Market stall, and American ramen tastes being what they are–both in actuality and in restaurants’ perception of what their customers would want–Satori made the choice to give the richer, creamier broths like tonkotsu and chicken paitan burner priority. (I’m not sure what has changed to enable Satori to bring on a dashi stockpot to the stall, I’ll be sure to ask next time) Finally, the lack of space and presumably dish-washing facilities means that Satori serves its ramen in paper bowls with small, sample-sized soup spoon, in serving sizes that are smaller–think 75% or so–of a typical ramen bowl.
That said, these space and logistical limitations should not necessarily prevent Satori from making good ramen, as any yatai (屋台, street stall) owner in Fukuoka will tell you. The shoyu broth I thought was okay, made from dashi stock and poured over the shoyu tare. Yet the broth was very salt-forward and pretty muted in its shoyu flavor; it could use better balance and possibly the introduction of other flavors like a chicken or pork broth.
Noodles are made offsite using a proprietary recipe on the restaurant’s own equipment. They were the component of the bowl I enjoyed the most, offering chewiness and bite even as I spent a minute or so photographing my bowl. The roasted pork belly chashu is now a very thin slice of coiled pork belly. It’s hard to go wrong with roasted fatty meat, but beyond that level of baseline competency I didn’t have much in the way of tasting notes given how thin the slices were. Ajitama was somewhat underdone with a liquid-y yolk and the menma could’ve been more pickled, though I assume the latter is probably Satori’s choice of supplier.
Satori’s location in North Market is a double-edged sword: its enviable position between the fashionable Short North, the nightlife of the Arena District, and the Downtown business district guarantees it hungry foot traffic at all times of the week. But this space also means real compromises on its ingredients and preparation methods. As shoyu is my favorite ramen style–and Seigo’s as well, if I remember my conversation with him correctly–it would be nice to have a shoyu broth that exhibits more flavor complexity instead of being so salt-forward. It would also be nice to be able to eat a full-sized bowl of ramen and thicker cuts of chashu on proper dinnerware. Perhaps these are changes Satori plans on making if/when it moves to a more permanent location, but they are not preordained. It will be interesting to see how Satori evolves and handles its growth in the next few years.
Q(ueue) Factor: None, 0910 on a weekday
Sense: Always nice to be the only person eating ramen for breakfast. Also interesting to see other stalls in action: the trays of butter chicken are already out at 0900 in the Indian stall nearby.
Price: $12 (Shoyu Ramen) + $1 (validated parking) + Tax/Tip
Satori Ramen Bar
North Market
59 Spruce St.
Columbus, OH
