The Best Seattle Ramen: Fu-Lin

On Super Bowl Sunday while most Americans ate pizza and brats (especially Packers fans), Emi and I went to eat ramen. Oooh ramen, how we love you. Unfortunately ramen, one of my favorite foods of all time, is nearly impossible to find here in Seattle. Well you can find it, but it tastes like crap.

Ever since hearing about Fu-Lin we knew we had to check it out. Being skeptical of Seattle ramen, it took us awhile to finally try it out, but it was well worth it.

Fu-Lin is located in the International District. The restaurant serves both Chinese and Japanese food. We learned the owner/chef was born in Hong Kong, but spent 18 years working in Japan.

Tonkotsu ramen is our favorite, and Fu-Lin did a great job. It reminded me of a solid "train station" type of ramen you might find in Tokyo. In Japan they're all over the place, but here just finding "decent" ramen is really tough. I'm not saying this was Ippudo good, but decent ramen which is saying a lot. The ramen was very rich. I've never had such a small bowl of ramen fill me up so much. Definitely a ton of fatty pork bones went into making this broth and the extra charsiu was well worth it. We also really liked their bamboo shoots. Not the straight out of the can, sour, stinky kind, but these were sweet, tender, and flavorful.

I also ordered a side of their gyoza/potstickers. They came out presented as a block of gyoza. Funny presentation, but pretty decent. I've had better (my family makes some good homemade gyoza), but I've had much, much worse.

If you think Top Ramen is tasty, then you need to have your eyes opened to what "real" ramen tastes like. Make sure to drop by Fu-Lin. The staff is friendly, the food is affordable, and even more important the tonkotsu ramen is good.

- Kyle