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Portlanders are prone to Asian soup-gasms—witness the gaga popularity of Ha VL, Pho Oregon, Boke Bowl and myriad tom yum slingers—so a superior bowl of ramen is bound to find an eager audience.
Kukai is located in Portland's far northwest flank in an upscale, Beaverton-like strip mall, where every night crowds descend like locusts to slurp the specialty Japanese noodle soup. But, please, don't take this as a suggestion to power up the Prius and rush out there, unless waiting 45 minutes for a table at a ramen-shop analog to Applebee's is your idea of a good time. Yes, the sad truth is that despite the crowds, Kukai is merely good, not great. Best I can figure, its popularity is the fortuitous result of an absence of any other options nearby.
Inconsistency at Kukai is its biggest bugaboo, the result of trying to do too much, the same way the bible-sized menu at virtually every corporate swillhole is a virtual guarantee of top-to-bottom mediocrity. At Kukai—a Japanese chain with 18 outlets at home, one in Taiwan and four in the United States, all in the Pacific Northwest—the menu begins with 12 ramen broths based on pork, chicken, seaweed, salt, soy, or some combination of these. Each broth is available either as "low sodium" or "traditional," though the traditional didn't seem overly salty. On one visit, the server warned that the low sodium "might not have a lot of flavor." She was right on one of two orders, which tasted bland, but not on the other.
The sodium paradox aside, of the multitude of ramen broths, the ones labeled "rich" tended to be deep and flavorful, harboring all sorts of meat and vegetable treasures beyond the namesake noodles. The noodles themselves might be overly soft or pleasantly chewy depending on the day. A hearty bowl of pork-based tonkotsu shio rich ramen ($12), with add-ins of soft-cooked egg and roasted pork "chashu" ($1.50 each) was a one-time winner. The lightly tangy yuzu shio ramen ($11) was also a keeper, the citrus adding interest and balance to the otherwise mundane kelp/bonito/salt broth. The garlic tonkotsu shoyu ramen ($12) had "lots of garlic," as the menu boasts, but the garlic flavor was harsh and unpleasant, as though raw cloves had been added to the bubbling broth. Whether ordered as part of the chicken ramen (shio or shoyu, $8), the "rich" variation ($11) or as an add-in, tender, juicy sliced chicken breast chashu was the best of the meats on the menu.
Kukai's izakaya menu, primarily populated with deep-fried Japanese bar snacks, is skippable. The chicken karaage ($6) doesn't hold a candle to the transcendent version at Biwa or the very good one at Yuzu. The "takoyaki octopus dumplings" (a bilingual redundancy, $5 ) are fine, but if you're looking for shards of bonito flake writhing atop blistering hot, fresh-from-the-fryer fritters, you're out of luck. The pork gyoza ($4.50) had little to offer in terms of flavor or texture, and the dipping sauce that came with them added nothing but moisture. The best small item on the menu was the spinach goma-ae ($4), a small plate of boiled spinach with a savory sesame dressing.
The food at Kukai may have been all over the map, but the service offered by a cadre of young 20-somethings was generally attentive and pleasant, if not all that knowledgeable about the cuisine. Watching one server cleaning up the detritus of an unwell infant after the family fled with its puking payload, you know the job isn't exactly a walk in the park.
Which leads to one last warning and tip if you insist on making the trek here or don't live far: Kukai is family-friendly to a fault. After all, soup is a simple pleasure even toddlers can enjoy. So, unless you have a little one of your own, visit as late as possible to avoid the "we'll-text-you-when-your-table-is ready" refrain and to skip the unavoidable excesses of the kiddie corps.
Order this: Yuzu shio ramen with soft- cooked egg and chicken chashu ($14).
EAT: Kukai Ramen & Izakaya, 11830 NW Cedar Falls Drive, 844-585-2487 ext. 4, kukai-ramen.com. 11 am-2:30 pm and 5 pm-9 pm Monday-Friday, 11 am-9 pm Saturday-Sunday.
Willamette Week