Tonbo Ramen Open on Wilmington Street
From the News & Observer...
“Get your chopsticks at the ready. Tonbo Ramen will open on South Wilmington Street next week.
The two-story restaurant will open Tuesday, Feb. 6, as a downstairs ramen bar and upstairs izakaya, a Japanese pub. It comes from the owners of the steak and sushi Kanki company, who renovated the century-old building at breakneck speed since announcing the restaurant last September. The renovation included an extensive facelift and reconfiguring of the previously vacant space.
Tonbo opens just in time to catch the chill still in Raleigh’s air, offering ramen bowls to warm body and soul. The ramen offerings include porky tonkotsu, soy based shoyu, as well as a shio and miso based bowl. There’s a vegetarian ramen, a seafood and a brothless mazemen. The broths are simmered for up to 20 hours and topped with slow roasted pork belly or shoulder, dumplings, soft cooked eggs and pickled vegetables. There’s also a curveball add-on: grilled avocado.
The upstairs izakaya will specialize in small bites to snack on while drinking. Fresh and simple salads, lamb, pork and vegetable steamed buns, grilled skewers of marinated chicken, beef or pork belly and a plate of blistered shishito peppers are all on the menu. There will be 12 beers on tap, mostly from North Carolina, plus a sake and cocktail list. There’s also a pair of whirling frozen cocktail machines spitting out boozy adult slushies: one rum-based, one bourbon.
The downstairs ramen shop will be open for lunch and dinner, and the izakaya will open at 4 p.m. on weekdays and for lunch and dinner on Saturdays and Sundays. ...”