Japanese is definitely my favourite cuisine, I love everything from maki to matcha and from soba noodles to silken tofu. No exceptions! Whilst I was visiting Tokyo last year I fell in love with ramen hence why I'm super excited to share the deets of this hot new restaurant with you. Goemon Ramen Bar recently opened on Brighton's Preston Street (often known locally as restaurant street) and, as the name suggests, they specialise in Japanese ramen.
When they launched they had a vegetarian option on the menu which was veganisable and they've recently expanded that section of the menu to add some great 100% vegan options.
The menu doesn't just consist of ramen though, Goemon also have a selection of vegan starters and sides and, as recommended by owner Rui, we started with the MozuKu Su, seaweed with vinegar, alongside a serving of vegetable dumplings.
Both of these dishes were delicious, the dumplings were incredibly light and I loved the presentation but the real star was the mozuku su. I never would have thought to order seaweed with rice vinegar, it sounds too simple to be truly great right? But it's a fantastic dish and one I'm surprised I've never heard of before, I loved the silky seaweed and found the dish to be really flavourful.
After much deliberating over the three vegan / veganisable ramen options on the menu I chose the Miso Ramen and Nick went with the Soy Milk Ramen.
The miso ramen comes topped with bamboo, sweetcorn, spring onions, wakame seaweed and bean sprouts and is full of thick wheat noodles whilst the soy milk ramen comes topped with spring onions, red pickled ginger, sweetcorn, spinach and black garlic oil and is chock full of thin noodles. You can order this spicy or non-spicy and Rui kindly brought over the spicy ingredients on the side so that I could try the non spicy version before Nick spiced it up.
The chefs at Goemon Ramen make their deeply flavourful seaweed and vegetable stock themselves from scratch like any reputable ramen joint would (have you not seen Ramen Girl?!) which makes it the perfect backdrop for all of the other flavours. I thoroughly enjoyed the miso ramen, if you read my posts about Japan you'll know that it's a favourite of mine, but I have to say that the few tastes I had of the soy milk ramen made me wish I'd be able to come back for more sooner than next summer! The creamy broth was flavourful, velvety and rich and I loved the intensity of the red pickled ginger. These were super huge bowls of soup with really decent helpings of noodles, it was a really filling meal and left me feeling satisfied all afternoon.
My only suggestion, which I've already passed on to the owners, is that I'd love to see a vegan protein or two listed in the toppings section of the menu alongside the dried seaweed, fried onions and other vege-ful toppings. I think that yuba would be a fantastic choice, what about you? Let me know in the comments.
Goemon Ramen Bar is located at 12 Preston Street. I was a guest of Goemon Ramen but chose to write this review because I genuinely loved the food and wanted to spread the word so that visiting and local vegans can get in on the delicious ramen action.