Ramen. Now that you have that word in your brain, what else comes to mind? Dried noodles, sodium-laden flavor packets, and boiling hot water? Styrofoam cups? Late nights studying for college exams? Getting two weeks’ worth of meals for next to nothing? Yeah. That’s what I used to think of, too but after my first visit to Alkaline those notions were quickly banished from my mind.
Chef and owner Kevin Ordonez spent six years of his childhood in Japan. This time served as a significant inspiration for his restaurant business but it wasn’t always about ramen or even about food. As a kid, Ordonez played soccer, music, and liked to skateboard. Like many who venture into the food industry, Ordonez didn’t come from generations of chefs nor did he cook every night with his family. It all started when he learned he could take a cooking class in school that would boost his GPA (not that it was bad to begin with, he laughs, it just could have been better). This led to cooking competitions and after winning camps at Johnson and Wales and the Culinary Institute of America, he ultimately won a full ride scholarship to CIA in New York.
Fast forward a few years, Ordonez decided to come back to Hampton Roads where his family is from originally. Recalling his childhood in Japan, he realized there were not many places in our area that served ramen. Ordonez wanted to change that. He took to Kickstarter and raised more than $25,000 to start the business and in November 2013, Alkaline served its first meals as a pup-up restaurant at Cutting Edge in Chesapeake. By April 2016, Alkaline found its permanent home, and therefore dropped the “pop-up” terminology, in Pendulum Fine Meats on Shirley Avenue in Norfolk. Ordonez says that if he opens any additional restaurants, they’ll be located outside of Norfolk.
To say it was a match made in heaven is an understatement. Ordonez says he works very well with Pendulum’s owners, Dylan and Dana Wakefield, and the partnership just made sense on so many levels. Many of Alkaline’s ingredients are from Pendulum. The two businesses are doing so well in fact, they were even featured together on a recent episode of Food Network’s Diners Drive-Ins and Dives.
So what’s in a name? Alkaline refers to the pH level in the noodle that the restaurant uses. The protein makeup allows the noodle to remain bouncy and intact in the near-boiling broth for a longer period of time than say, a spaghetti noodle which Ordonez says would turn to mush. So much thought and care go into the dishes at Alkaline that by the time they get to you, they may be hours if not days in the making. The beef and pork broths themselves take 48 hours to prepare!
Ordonez admits that what Alkaline serves is not “traditional ramen.” In Japan, the focus of ramen dishes is the broth and the noodle and Ordonez agrees, without those components, a bowl of ramen is unsuccessful. He says when one adds meat to the bowl, it’s not necessarily ramen. He laughs, “It’s meat soup, I don’t know.” But part of having a business is understanding customer-base. Ordonez says, “What I’ve noticed here in America is that Americans like meat. We like toppings…” so Alkaline has add-on options like their house rayu, a spicy chili garlic oil, sweet house pickles, or soy pickled shiitake mushrooms, to name a few. It’s ramen with a little extra.
In addition to ramen, Alkaline also offers “Street Food.” One crowd favorite is the Tater Tot Okonomiyaki. The tots are piled high and topped with Asian mayonnaise called kewpie, chunks of bacon, and dried smoked flakes of fish called katsuobushi. The Asian Sticky Wings are also another popular menu item. The wings are fried Korean-style and doused in a sweet and savory house sauce and topped with fried garlic.
Owning a restaurant is not easy, Ordonez admits. Whenever someone asks him what his most challenging experience has been in the business, he says, “Instead of thinking of it as one hill that you get over and then you’re successful, you should think of it as every week or every month…There are probably a hundred things that if unaddressed could ruin everything. Then the next week there are a hundred more…” It’s a balance that Ordonez has managed by running a tight ship the way that his past employers had, some of whom ran Michelin Star restaurants. He says, “The more you’re focused on yourself and what you’re doing, the more successful you’ll be.”
To learn more about Alkaline, visit their website or follow them on Instagram and Facebook.