For some reason, I’ve been craving ramen pretty much every day this year — and I mean real ramen, not that shady instant stuff. So I was overjoyed to discover that Roc City Ramen just so happens to be a Black-owned business! I’ve been meaning to check them out for quite a while now, and this gave me the perfect excuse to chow down on some hot, spicy noodles.
Roc City Ramen also offers some yummy dishes aside from ramen, so we put together the perfect sampling for a review (whilst still fulfilling my insatiable craving for ramen, of course). We started off our buffet with the vegan gyoza, which I’d say were pretty good overall. The vegetable filling was flavorful and well-seasoned. My only note was that the dumpling wrappers were just slightly overdone. They were a bit soft and didn’t hold their shape or stay together as we ate them. Though there were visible sear marks, there was none of that nice crispy seared texture. If you’re the kind of person that eats your dumplings all in one big bite, you’ll be fine.
Next, we tried out the vegan curry, which was another warm and flavorful veggie delight. It smelled absolutely wonderful, which was a great testament to the flavor. The curry had a light heat, rich spices, good acidity, subtle smokiness, and the perfect amount of salt to tie it all together. The vegetables were cooked well and packed with the warm flavor of the curry sauce. The white rice underneath, like gyoza, was just a tad overdone. It was slightly sticky and mushy, but fine. It soaked up the curry sauce nicely, so I suppose I can forgive it.
Moving on from the vegan dishes and onto the main attraction — spicy miso tonkotsu ramen. This pork ramen was exactly what my heart had been yearning for. The broth had a fantastic balance of flavors. It was medium-high heat level with just the right amount of acidity to balance that burn, a nice bit of meaty pork flavor, and a very powerful sweet miso nuttiness that worked beautifully with the meat. This also happened to be the thickest, creamiest ramen I’ve ever had; the broth was pure rich silkiness, and it was divine. The noodles soaked up a ton of that lovely broth, which meant that they were packed with flavor as well. The abundant sweet corn paired nicely with the heat of the broth. Although the pork was a bit too fatty for my liking, it was extremely moist and tender. I do wish there were more pork though, because a couple small round slices of pork was not enough, especially for sharing. This ramen was spicy, sweet, nutty, creamy, starchy, fatty, and just addictive. I truly would drink that broth straight out of a glass.
Another lovely thing about this Roc City Ramen order was that it was delivered super quickly. I think it arrived about twenty minutes earlier than projected, which I will never complain about, so props to Roc City Ramen and our GrubHub driver for that win. The food we got was super flavorful and fell within about a mid-level price range. In addition to delivering, Roc City Ramen has two different locations in Rochester, making it even more accessible. To no one’s surprise, my lustful craving for ramen has still not subsided, so I may very well be happily hitting up Roc City Ramen for another blissful taste of that spicy miso tonkotsu goodness.
