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Richmond's Ramen Ninjas

Starting a restaurant is no small thing - especially in a foodie town like Richmond, but a local man has high hopes as he builds on his family tradition - mixing Asian and Southern ingredients and cooking techniques to create meals that sell for just $10.

 

It’s four o’clock, and 34-year-old Will Richardson is at work - pounding pork for dinner.  It’s hot in the kitchen -- noisy, and Richardson couldn’t be happier.  This is where he’s been heading since childhood, working in his grandparents Chinese restaurant in Richmond.

“When my grandparents first opened the restaurant in 1974, they had a lady working in there who had a place here in town called Lucy’s Lovin’ Oven.  She basically taught my grandparents all the good things about Southern food, and they taught her about Chinese food, and it just became a thing in our household - just normal to us.  It wasn’t fusion - just food.”

As a young chef, he mastered cooking techniques from his mother’s side of the family with ingredients from the rural south where his Dad grew up - dishes like Pork chops, rice and greens.

“Ours is a katsu style pork chop, which is actually a Japanese type preparation.  It comes with a tankatsu sauce, which is more or less a Japanese barbeque sauce,  jasmine rice lap trung sausage.”

He discovered that these two culinary traditions had things in common.

“Boiled peanuts are huge in the South.  The Chinese love them as well!”

He built a team in the kitchen - a group that would be known as the ramen ninjas.

“We inspire each other.  We end up calling each other in the middle of the night sometimes, talking about things like potato salad and boiled peanuts.  It’s funny when you hear somebody’s girlfriend saying, ‘Who are you talking about at 2:30 in the morning, and what are you talking about?  We’re talking about collard greens.’”                   

And he got a call from Sarah Choi, who was new to town.  Being Korean, she loved noodle soups and wondered where she could get good ramen.  Richardson invited her to help with a pop-up dinner.

“Usually a generous restaurant owner would open up their kitchen to us on their closed nights.  We prep everything, bring everything in, we serve, pack everything up and then exit the space.”

After nine months of sold-out meals, they’ve found a space near the campus of Virginia Commonwealth and are offering dinners based on Ramen and nightly specials -- all costing no more than ten bucks.

“Yesterday we did a pork belly and caramelized carrots, which was actually really good.  We actually have a daily deviled egg that we do.  Yesterday we did a red pickled ginger.”

The restaurant is called Shoryuken -a  term that makes sense as Richardson pounds tonight's pork cutlets.  It’s a term that describes one of the most powerful moves in martial arts -- the  rising dragon punch.

 

Sandy Hausman is Radio IQ's Charlottesville Bureau Chief