Korean beef, kimchi, mushrooms, noodles–what more could you want? Nils Breckoff did a recent piece in The Advocate on Jinya Ramen Bar and he came about as close as he possibly could to saying ramen is the new gumbo, and I don’t think he’s that far off. It would be very interesting to see how many bowls of ramen and pho are consumed daily in BR compared to bowls of gumbo. No way to know for sure, but my guess is ramen/pho would come in second, right behind gumbo and ahead of chicken noodle soup and turtle soup. I’m surprised our kudzu cuisine hasn’t taken over these soups yet with a gator ramen or a fried oyster pho. Just about everyone has a blackened shrimp remoulade, so how far away can a Louisiana based ramen or pho really be?