Umamido: An ingenious twist on a Japanese staple

Take two scoops of ramen noodles. Now wrap them around a burger, pick it up and eat it.

You’ve never dreamed of doing such a thing? Well, Guy Quirynen dreamed of it. A graduate of the famous Ter Duinen hotel school in Koksijde, he went on to the Ecole hôtelière in Lausanne, Switzerland and from there to an internship in Kyoto.

That’s where, as he tells it, he discovered the Japanese way of eating noodles during his first meal – a bowl of tonkotsu ramen made with pork bone broth – and was instantly smitten.

“Ramen” is the name of the soup though is a word often used to refer to the noodles themselves. The soup is based on a broth made with meat and bones with an intense savoury flavour. Quirynen calls his restaurant Umamido, which means “the savoury way”, while “umami” is the word foodies use to describe the deep hearty flavour associated with soy and fish sauce, Parmesan and beefsteak tomatoes.

The noodle bar is a fixture in Japan, and Quirynen decided to bring it to Belgium. His first restaurant was in the Flagey area in Brussels; two more followed in Antwerp, close to the Fine Arts Museum and on Dageraadplaats near Berchem station.

Now he’s added a fourth, on Sint-Katelijneplein in Brussels. “We were lucky to find a place here where the Achepot used to be,” he said, referring to the French bistro that closed 10 years ago. “This is a sort of Flemish quarter, and it’s also very international.”

The menu is the same all over. The essential broth is made in Antwerp in a 200-litre pot, then vacuum-packaged and sent out to the other locations. The meat comes from a co-operative in Malmedy.

The ramen comes in six varieties: flavoured with salt, soy, miso, spicy miso, tonkotsu or vegetarian. Other dishes include gyoza, steamed packets of chicken and veg; steamed pork buns with lacquered pork belly; and marinated mountain vegetables with tofu and a seaweed salad.

But back to that ramen burger. The beef is prepared and aged in the cold room in Antwerp. The noodles are cooked in the broth then dried in the shape of a burger bun. They don’t necessarily keep it, though, all the way to the end. I wasn’t the only one of the party who ended up slurping up whatever I could get a grip on, my fingers soaked to the wrist. Don’t order this dish if you’re out with someone you wish to impress. But do order it at some point.

Photo: Ganaëlle Glume/Umamido