Wu-Rons Ramen Shop Opening in SE Portland

Ramen from Wu-Rons, a new ramen spot coming to SE Portland. Photo credit: Wu-Rons

Wu-Rons, a very popular ramen spot from Charlotte, NC, announced late last year that they were pulling up stakes and heading to Portland. Their new home is in the old Noraneko/Nanban location on SE Water Street. They describe themselves as a Nagahama ramen shop.

The owners of Wu-Rons are Shintaro Yamada, born and raised in Fukuoka, Japan; and chef Kimitaka “Taka” Terashita, who hails from Sapporo, Japan. They ran Wu-Rons and SARU (another ramen shop) in Charlotte, NC. Before that they opened Bow Ramen together in Manhattan. Taka also owned Kuu Ramen in NYC.

So what is a “Nagahama ramen shop”? Nagahama is a popular type of tonkotsu ramen in Fukuoka—often served as street food—where, of course Shintaro, is from. Nagahama ramen is characterized by having a light but flavorful broth and thin noodles. In this tradition you can you can specify how firm you want your noodles to be: “yawa” (soft), “kata” (firm), “nama” (raw) or “kakiage” (fried).

There’s no indication online about their Portland menu (but here’s a cached version of their Charlotte delivery menu for reference). Here’s how Eater Carolinas described the food at Wu-Rons on their comfort food map:

“Choose from three rich, velvety broths including chicken, pork or a vegetarian kelp and mushroom, all accompanied with a generous heap of hand pulled noodles. The Shirozaru classic tonkotsu is packed with rich, pork taste from broth to sliced belly and the Tokyo shoyu blends the best of both worlds within its chicken broth and pork belly topping, adding scallion and bean sprouts for a layered crunch.

I’d love to see some rice dishes, buns, and dumplings on the Portland menu along with the main feature of the various ramens. Since this is Portland, no doubt there will be some vegetarian options. (Maybe vegan, too?) At SARU, their vegetarian ramen recipe was created by Taka for their vegetarian customers, and my hope is that they offer it here, too.

It looks like at this point they are going to have about 30 indoor seats; no outdoor seating is indicated on city documents.

Their plan is to open sometime this month. This is a great time of year in Portland for ramen, so their timing is good in that respect. Let’s hope omicron doesn’t cause too much havoc for them, too. Good luck, Wu-Rons!

Wu-Rons (opening early 2022)
1430 SE Water Avenue, Portland
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