5 Spots for National Noodle Day Cravings
I only realized that food holidays were a celebrated event about 2 years ago when I was working on Lifestyle programming for my job, but now they've taken over my life! Chocolate Day, Lobster Day, Junk Food Day, and more—there's even holidays for really specific things like strawberry shortcake!
Today (October 6) is one of my favorites: National Noodle Day.
Originally, I thought about just sharing some good ramen spots, but the noodles category covers so much more than that. Because it's so broad, I'm only sharing places that I've been to semi-recently in San Francisco, and I'm only covering Asian restaurants because I gotta rep my people.
Keep scrolling for 5 of my current favorite spots (in no particular order) for tasty noodles perfect for slurping noisily!
1. Iza Ramen
You can visit Iza Ramen in SOMA or on Fillmore for a hot bowl of noodles, chicken karaage, or even raw octopus (just tried this for the first time and it was delicious). The soft boiled egg is delicious, and I always add an extra egg and some kimchi to my bowl of spicy miso ramen.
Kagawa-ya Udon just opened up this year, but this fast service udon shop already gets plenty of business. They have limited hours and a pretty small menu, but everything they have is delicious, especially their chewy udon. It's a little extra to add a soft boiled egg and tempura, but it's so worth it!
Mensho Tokyo is the new hot ramen spot in SF, and I need to go back because I just found out they added some kind of matcha ramen to the menu 😍 With authentic tasty ramen straight from Japan, the Mensho tonkotsu broth is interestingly frothy, which is so different from other places I've been to and not in a bad way! With a higher price point than a regular ramen shop, you also might have to wait in a long line before getting a seat in this tiny restaurant, but it's definitely worth trying at least once.
4. Terracotta Warrior
Looking for some authentic Xi'an cuisine? Terracotta Warrior in Outer Sunset serves up hand-pulled noodles in a spicy and sour broth with tender lamb on top. It's not for everyone, but I loved it because this tasty noodle soup really reminded me of my time studying abroad in China!
Unfff, I could seriously eat garlic noodles every single day if I didn't know about how much butter goes into it. Hint: it's probably more than you should be eating in one sitting 😂 I love Perilla's garlic noodles because they don't feel super greasy, and they have just the right amount of minced garlic cooked with it. So umami!
Noodle Wishlist
These are just 5 delicious San Francisco noodle hotspots, but I've got plenty on my list that I still need to try! Do you have anything on your list that you'd recommend whether it's ramen, udon, pho, pasta, etc.? Let me know!
