Furious Spoon Will Change Your Mind about Ramen

While most college kids spend their money on cheap beer and packets of Maruchan ramen, I was spending mine on sushi rice and ingredients from the one Japanese market in Columbia, Missouri. Needless to say I never developed the same relationship with those comforting noodles as many in my generation did and was not the first to jump on the whole ramen bandwagon when shops started opening up left and right in Chicago. Furious Spoon changed everything for me. When I was invited to come try Chicago's hottest new ramen spot I took along my number one soup loving fiancé, Taste Tester #1. This guy LOVES soup and ramen is no exception. We decided to split two different bowls, the Furious Ramen and the Tsukemen along with two Harumaki (Japanese Spring Rolls).

At first I was afraid that the Furious would be too spicy for me, but was informed by their amazing manager that we could actually request a lower spice level. I am so glad we did because I would have missed out on an amazing dish if we wouldn’t have asked. Chashu pork belly, white pepper chicken, spicy miso, marinated mushrooms, garlic relish, a 60 minute sous vide egg (we actually got two), and fury sauce formed this glorious dish. The egg’s yolk added a luscious silky sauce to the ramen unlike anything I’d experienced before. The broth might have been my favorite part of the dish, but I did love the huge ladle-like spoon that helped shovel in the perfectly cooked noodles. I even enjoyed the mushrooms in this dish, and as a known mushroom hater this is definitely saying something.

We also tried the Tsukemen which is a totally unique dish that came with dipping noodles (thicker and fatter than ramen noodles), chashu pork belly, scallions and nori. The noodles were served cold with a warm almost gravy-like beef broth reduction in which you dipped the noodles into. The pork in this dish was cooked really well and wasn’t too fatty for pork belly. I also loved the sensory experience of cold and hot all at once and the briny fishy flavor from the nori that was tossed in with the noodles.

I’m a sucker for spring rolls so we also tried their Harumaki which were served piping hot from the fryer with a spicy mustard sauce. I was impressed that the veggies inside the spring roll itself were not soggy and still had some crunch to them. We only ordered one each of these, and I could have easily eaten at least two or three myself!

Overall, I had an amazing experience at Furious Spoon, the ramen was literally life-changing and the staff helpful and pleasant. I can’t recommend their Furious Ramen enough, like I said I’ve never been a huge fan of ramen (restaurant or packet) and Furious Spoon certainly changed my mind. My only gripe is that they don’t do to-go orders, although I do respect that they want the quality of the product to be as high as possible and if that means trekking over to Wicker Park from East Lakeview I’ll gladly do it again.