Mensho Tokyo serves delicious umami filled bowls of ramen in the heart of San Francisco. Located near the famed Union Square, Mensho is a small shop with limited seating and mouth watering bowls of ramen that might just make it the best ramen in the bay. I’ve been to this spot a couple of times and I can’t wait to head back. Here’s my full review:
Wait Times
It’s not often that I talk about wait times, but Mensho Tokyo is a small shop with varying wait times that can exceed an hour on the weekend. If you’re planning on eating here with a larger group(anything more than 4 or 5) be prepared for an even longer wait.
The Food
During both my previous visits, I had the Garlic GKO, a creamy ramen filled with 4 different types of delicious garlic. If you’re ordering this dish and plan on going out after, you should probably bring a pack of breath mints. For my third visit…. Drum Roll, I still went with the GKO. I couldn’t decided if I wanted to try something so I went with the usual umami filled garlic ramen. Jen was recommended the VGKO, the vegan version of the GKO by a friend and she decided to give that a try. In contrast to the rich umami flavor of the GKO, the VGKO has sweeter notes and is not as heavy. We also ordered spicy enoki chips which were topped with a hint of lemon and togarashi chili powder.
GKO Ramen Breakdown
Ramen is such a unique flavor comprised of 5 core pieces: broth, tare(sauces), noodles, toppings, and oil. Each core element works in unity with each other creating a mouth watering bowl of noodles. The GKO’s broth was rich and savory, well seasoned with the tare and oils. The noodles were also thick-cut and chewy. Chewy noodles are a must for ramen and it really creates that bite. I also prefer thick cut noodles so everything was perfect. Finally, the toppings were also incredibly well done. My delicious bowl of ramen was topped with pork chashu, soft boiled egg, lots of garlic crisps, and some carrot chips. The carrot chips were an interesting addition to ramen but I really enjoyed them.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Mensho Tokyo is one of the best ramen spots in the bay. Their combination of umami filled, garlic packed broth leaves me wanting more every time. The line and location are the only two drawbacks of the otherwise simply amazing ramen!
