By David & Susan Greenberg, The Ardent Gourmet
Apparently a robot vacuum and a step stool met on Tinder and begat the robot who stood motionlessly nearby the counter at FuddoYama Ramen, Teriyaki in Beaverton. Having watched Alien and The Terminator, we were fly to the dangers of robots. The woman behind the counter reassured us though that this was a good robot, not a wicked one…as so many are.
We placed our order and soon he rolled from the kitchen to our table and swiveled to face us, our appetizer of edamame atop his flat head, like a skewed toupee. He could have hurled the edamame at us or even leapt upon us but instead he was completely docile with no more personality than a shopping cart. He said, “Please take your food.” We took it.
He said, “enjoy” and “arigato” which means “thank you.” Not a gabby guy, he silently returned to the kitchen like a faithful dog. Perhaps he lacked the conversational skills for a second career as a therapy robot. We’ve assigned it the male gender and call it “he,” but, in fact, he may be she.
The edamame was as good as edamame can be. We liked the way the pods containing the beans were salted bringing a little salt to the beans themselves when we shucked them.
After an interval he returned with an order of Kara-age, Japanese, boneless fried-chicken chunks with spiced mayo. Dark meat, moist, crisp, flavorful with finely shredded cabbage for added crunch, it was a worthy rendition of this dish. The spicy mayo gave it a jolt. Once again he spoke little, yet to his credit he made no rude noises and didn’t twerk.
Then he brought A/ Black Garlic Ramen: Tonkotsu broth with house-made black garlic oil, pork belly, wood ear mushroom, green onion and half a custardy egg, and B/ Oregon Deluxe Ramen: Tonkotsu broth with house-made basil pesto, pork belly, bamboo shoot, wood ear mushroom, crunch onion, corn, green onion, and egg.
The Black Garlic Ramen was garlic forward but not enough to set off radiation detectors, just how we like it.
The Oregon Ramen tasted of excellent pesto, an unlikely meld but good as a now-and-then dish.
The noodles were just-right springy, made with alkaline water no doubt. The housemade broths sang a fine bass-baritone. It’s lucky there was a small portion of pork belly (the crack cocaine of the meat world) because were there more we would have kept eating it until we keeled over dead, it was that delicious. We brought a piece back for our dog who agreed.
FuddoYama shares an outdoor mall with our dog’s beloved kennel, Barklandia. Ramen — Dogs, the two are binary stars. Life without either is bleak.
Though not about to knock the Church of Ramen on its noodle, we recommend this place. Its food is on par with countless homespun fooderies in Japan, completely competent, though maybe not killer. Come with kids. The robot is cool. Enjoy. Arigato.
Fuddo Yama Ramen
8610 SW Hall Blvd. Beaverton, OR 97008
503-626-1717