After hearing so many good things about X Ramen from my friends, I was looking forward to trying it out myself.
The New York inspired Chicken, Ramen and Boba eatery is the concept of two brothers who grew up locally in Fairfield County, in the restaurant biz. The restaurant is located in the former Wafu space. It’s spacious interior is bright and airy and offers plenty of comfortable seating. The vibe inside is youthful and whimsical, with brightly colored anime posters and TVs lining the walls. In the center of the room, overhead, a lovely display of Japanese umbrellas and lanterns hangs overhead.
X Ramen’s fairly extensive menu is as fun as the decor. The offerings feature various Asian favorites from Ramen to Udon, assorted appetizers from bao buns to fried chicken, dim sum and a creative boba menu offering classic teas, fruit, tease, and fancy “signature” teas and slushies. The dishes are straightforward, simple and uncomplicated, perfectly suited for both the novice as well as the seasoned ‘slurper.’
At one end of a non-descript strip mall in Orange is a new restaurant called Ji Be Chuan — You could call it a noodle joint or a soup joint, but that’s not an altogether accurate description. Although its roots stem from China, Ji Be Chuan isn’t exactly a Chinese restaurant either. A Chinese franchise which was founded in Shuzhou, China has over 400 locations in China with a growing international presence. There are 50 restaurants in the US including one in New York City, and one here in Orange, Connecticut.
This franchise is unique in that about 50% of the menu features original Ji Be Chuan recipes, but franchisees are allowed to supplement with their own recipes and dishes. For this reason, the Orange location features a unique blend of Asian influences and flavors from Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and, of course, China. This “flexible franchise,” as owner Jin Lin refers to it, allowed him to incorporate pho and ramen with the traditional Chinese dishes. There is something for everyone, and something familiar to everyone.
I recently had the pleasure of dining at Yuki’s Kitchen, a charming Korean, Japanese and Chinese culinary haven that left me utterly impressed and thoroughly satisfied. From the moment I stepped in to this primarily take-out spot, the quaint friendly ambiance and attentive service set the stage for a memorable gastronomic experience. Ken and Yuki Piao, a husband and wife team, have been in the Fairfield/Westport area for more than +10 years and decided in November of 2022 to open a lovely tiny haven of authentically excellent Asian food. We also had the pleasure of enjoying some special dishes prepared by Yuki’s mother visiting from Korea for 2 months.
Sluuuuuurp. Siiiip! Sip! Just a few of the sounds you might hear when consuming a steaming hot bathtub-sized bowl of delicious, noodlicious ramen. Whether you’ve got a simpler bowl of noodles and broth on the brain or one brimming with a myriad of toppers, not much is more satisfying than slurping to your heart’s content. To take the chill off these end-of-winter days, we’ve got the consummate listing for your next craving. Dive on in, the slurping is good!
Here are 25 Spots for great ramen in Connecticut.
If we missed a Ramen spot you love, please contact us.
As summer rolls around, Connecticut’s food lovers look to take advantage of the seasonal ambience and garden produce in order to experience unforgettable meals. And nothing epitomizes the combination of beautiful sights and fresh food more than field-to-table dinners. This summer, a handful of Connecticut’s most beloved farms are offering outstanding on-site prix fixe meals made with locally-sourced ingredients. So that you don’t miss out on these special experiences, we’ve rounded up the best that Connecticut has to offer.
Pho Fans, Darien’s newest eatery is a family-run Vietnamese restaurant which opened just a couple of months ago and has already created quite the reputation for itself. The name suits this restaurant well – as those who enter will all quickly become fans! The Connecticut location is the second of the same name; the first is located in Huntington, NY. Vietnamese food is known to be one of the healthiest cuisines with minimal use of oils and dairy. As a result, flavors are light, fresh and balanced. Pho Fan relies on generations-old family recipes that translate well to the modern, health-inspired American palate. Their focus is on health and nutrition while delivering delicious food. You won’t find anything artificial or any additives whatsoever in their food.
Chefs realized a long time ago that “farm to table” was more than a phrase, it was a healthier way to eat, tasted better and improved the diversity of local economies by helping make farming economically viable. In addition, this growing trend has another major benefit, increasing access to a wide range of different food options across our community.
We, in Connecticut, are incredibly lucky with access to a large and growing number of farms and farmers’ markets, but sometimes a visit to that local farm stand during its business hours is difficult. For people who are not members of a CSA (community supported agriculture) program and would still like to incorporate ultra-fresh products into their everyday lives, CT based Berkshires Direct now gives customers greater access to the resources of farm-fresh products delivered to your home. They are based in Connecticut and currently making deliveries in Connecticut and NYC (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens).
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At a hillside shopping center overlooking nothing more fashionable than the far ridge line of the Housatonic River and Sikorsky’s helicopter factory steams a great bowl of pho. It’s a standard bo vien with beef meatballs, ordered lightly rich with small convex globules of transparent oil magnifying both light and flavor in the broth. I’ve recently dosed a bite with a slice of positively infernal green pepper. A less varied quarantine diet has apparently softened my usually spice-calloused tongue. My eyes are watering, and my nose is running. I’m in heaven.
These farms have CSA shares still available (organized by county), click through for additional details on each. Sales are very brisk this year, please act quickly!
It was a warm February morning and my son and I joined a group of families as we gathered at Ambler Farm in Wilton, CT to kick off the maple sugaring season. We were greeted by Program Director Kevin Meehan and received an introductory lesson on how to tap a maple tree. Most of us stood in awe as the sap started to drip out of the tree upon tapping it. Many cheered with excitement for what was about to begin was a fantastic winter farming adventure and a great lesson in farm-to-table. We then received our buckets from Assistant Program Manager Jennifer Grass and proceeded to carefully select our “Giving Trees” on the farm. We hung our buckets on the trees and captured photos to commemorate the day. (Our tree was number 42 and pretty far from the sugar shack! It was an adventure after all!) Then we waited. We waited a week. During that week, many of us wondered just how much sap we would find in our buckets when we returned to the farm.
With the glorious warmth that summer brings to Connecticut comes a plethora of delicious fruits, vegetables, and other produce that are sure to highlight any and every meal of the season. If you’re looking to get a taste of the incredible produce CT offers when the temperature is at its hottest, you’ll surely want to make a trip to some local farm stands. As late July is upon us, however, the number of summer days left are ticking away at a startling speed. But fear not; your life just got a little bit easier. Some of the best summer farm stands in the state are listed below, ranging from the eastern most points of Connecticut to down in Fairfield County. All you have to do is find one that catches your eye and take the drive.
When was the last time you thought about where each element of your dinner came from? The plates, the table, the meat, the cups; each item seems to come from an arbitrary supermarket, creating a culture where the process of making and eating food is incredibly solidarity. That, in a nutshell, is why Dan Sabia left the restaurant industry. And now, he’s using his work with wood, fire, and food to change that norm in a world where very few are trying. Chef Dan Sabia is changing the way we think about private catering with his innovative new business, Wood Fire Food.
Max Chef to Farm, an award-winning group of events that celebrate the amazing food grown in our backyard, is heading into their 12th year. Guests are transported directly to the farm to experience seasonal and local food. Their dinners are multi-course feasts showcasing the delicious bounty of Connecticut-grown produce and other locally-sourced ingredients prepared on site by Chef Steve Michalewicz of Max Catering & Events, Chef Hunter Morton, Culinary Director of the Max Restaurant Group, and the entire Max Chef to Farm team.
Max Chef to Farm dinners are adventurous events that celebrate and support CT-grown products. Their host farm for most events this season is the 160-acre Rosedale Farms, located in Simsbury, CT. They have many things in common with the Max Restaurant Group including a commitment to using sustainable farming and business practices. Speaking of support...
Brewery Legitimus, the 7 barrel craft brewery co-founded by husband and wife team Chris and Christina Sayer, is partnering once again withBarden Farm (New Hartford, CT), to bring a Community Supported Agriculture, Beer & Cheese (CSABC) Share to the community. Back for a second year in a row, the 10-week “Farm, Beer and Cheese Share” begins July 11th and will run until September 12th.
The first in the area, the CSABC share brings together locally grown produce from Barden Farm, locally crafted beer by Brewery Legitimus, and locally made cheese from several different farms in CT.
A CSABC share membership is $485 for the 10 Weeks and includes Craft Beer from Brewery Legitimus, Cheese and of course a Farm Share from Barden Farm. It works just like a CSA. Here’s what’s included:
For those of you who are unfamiliar with this charming eatery in the heart of Ridgefield, Bailey’s Backyard first opened its doors nearly 20 years ago as a neighborhood coffee shop before transforming itself into a charming American restaurant with a simple concept; offer exceptional seasonal cuisine in a cozy, relaxed atmosphere. It would soon become a neighborhood hot spot, offering locals a new dining experience. Several years ago Bailey’s evolved once again and the restaurant is now a farm-to-table establishment with a mission to create a menu based on the freshest local sources. Today meat and produce are still gathered from nearby farms, both in New York and Connecticut, and Seafood is garnered from Connecticut, Massachusetts and the Chesapeake Bay.
I was recently invited to sample Bailey’s new Market Table Tasting Menu offered every Wednesday night. A new menu is introduced each week, giving diners the opportunity to try something new each time. The menu is Prix Fixe, $40 for four courses or $65 for the four courses and a wine pairing.
On Thursday, June 14th, Chef Geoff Lazlo of Geoff Lazlo Food, in Greenwich, CT will be cooking at the prestigious James Beard House in NYC. The evening's menu will feature Connecticut farms, and is aptly titled "Connecticut Farm Feast." Check out the menu below. and reserve your seat here.
Connecticut Magazine’s Best Chef of 2018 Geoff Lazlo earned his fine dining chops with stints at Gramercy Tavern, Chez Panisse, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and the Mill Street Restaurant Group before venturing out to create his own company. Sample the cream of Connecticut’s farm-to-table crop with a sumptuous, organic spring harvest, fresh picked from his lovingly tended plots at Greenwich Community Gardens.
What do you get when you mix cooking traditions of both the Italian and French? The best of both worlds at ROÌA Restaurant in New Haven. It’s a culinary combo that doesn’t require you to renew your passport.
Located in the former Taft Hotel that dates back to 1912, ROÌA Restaurant and Cafe has historical charm. Step inside and you’ll see what we mean with its two-floor open design with ornate ceilings and impressive columns. The building is truly an architect’s dream. But you don’t have to be a designer to appreciate all that ROÌA has to offer. You just have to be hungry.
Robert Atkinson is impatient with Mother Nature. The 12 vegetable beds beneath the patio of the Barcelona Wine Bar & Restaurant in Fairfield are awaiting the seeds for their sixth year of providing homegrown ingredients to the Fairfield restaurant’s kitchen, but the New England weather has not been cooperating.
This will be the sixth year of Barcelona’s vegetable garden, which offers patrons the opportunity to select ingredients for preparation by the restaurant’s kitchen staff. “I always like to tell people it’s better than farm-to-table,” continued Atkinson. “It is garden-to-table, and there is no transportation because the farmers aren’t even driving it over.”
I submit that raw milk might just be the most real of all foods.
Start with the fact that milk is the only food created specifically to feed something. (Honey doesn’t count, as the pollen honey is made from has its own agenda.) Synonymous with nourishment, raw milk is the first food most human beings—all mammals—ingest. And raw milk, for it to be free of any off flavors and to be safe to drink, requires painstaking care to produce. Every little step in the process matters.
The subtle and intricate flavors in raw milk, the very opposite of the one-note flavor of pasteurized milk or, worse, the waxy cardboard taste vacuum of skim, come from the undenatured biocomplexity in unpasteurized milk. When I read chemists-for-hire claiming, on behalf of big commercial dairy, that there isn't that much nutritional difference between pasteurized and raw, I choose to trust my palate. Well, my palate and the biochemists who say that the difference is real and considerable.
Chef Tim LaBant and The Schoolhouse At Cannondale have released the schedule for the 2018 season’s Farm to Fork dinners.Tickets go on sale May 1st...and they go fast! Check out the schedule below.
Four locally sourced courses served family style under the stars (weather permitting). Beginning at 6 pm, Cocktail hour (drinks included), Farm Tour and Dinner (BYOB) by Wilton's own, Chef Tim LaBant of The Schoolhouse at Cannondale. Location: Millstone Farm, Wilton, CT.
Dinner is BYOB starting at around 7 pm and is four courses, family style.
