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Last week, Japanese chef Masaharu Morimoto brought a whole new look to his eponymous restaurant at the MGM Grand when he introduced Las Vegas to his ramen restaurant Momosan Ramen & Sake with three nights of pop-up dinners in the lounge. The Iron Chef confirms the experiment was to see if the restaurant might expand to Las Vegas next.
Momosan, a nickname of chef Morimoto, debuted in New York City in 2016 around the same time his sushi restaurant and teppan grill opened in Las Vegas.
“Momosan pays homage to my childhood in Hiroshima, where I developed an early love of noodles,” Morimoto said in a press statement. “While ramen is our focus, we also feature a variety of other traditional and contemporary Japanese-inspired comfort foods.”
That menu included three styles of ramen, including a tonkotsu with 80 percent pork, 20 percent chicken broth; Tokyo chicken ramen with soy-marinated chicken; and a tantan variety in a creamy coconut broth with pork chatsu. All rang in at $16.
Curls of duck fat fries, soft shell bao with crispy softshell crab, duck tacos, and tetsunabe pork gyoza arrived on the appetizer portion of the menu along with crispy mimiga, Japanese fried pig ear seasoned with shichimi and sake. Those dishes ranged from $6 to $12.
Momosan Ramen & Sake has locations in New York City and inside the Alohilani Resort Waikiki Beach with a third location opening this summer in Seattle’s International District.
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