NUDO Ramen House

Our original plan for Spokane in terms of dinner was The Flying Goat.  However, we were pretty much settled into our hotel in Downtown and didn't really feel like heading back out with the car.  Furthermore, we were pretty much sick of all the fried chicken and BBQ that we'd been consuming since we left LA.  Yes, #firstworldproblems I know...  So we went for plan B and decided to walk a few blocks over to Nudo where we would have the opportunity to eat some noodles in soup.  Get it?  Nudo?  (noodle...).  Yes, we knew the place wasn't exactly an authentic Asian restaurant, but that didn't matter to us.

Before we got to the "nudo", we had the Popcorn Shrimp which had way too much going on in our opinion.  When we could find a nugget of shrimp, it was over-battered.  It was cold-water crunchy though, so texturally, it was okay.  The goopy mess of sweet soy and sweet mayo just made things too heavy and over-seasoned.  I would've much preferred the sauces on the side.  This was a definite miss for us.  Next, the Red Sauce Pork Wontons were decent.  Feature a delicate dumpling wrapper, the wontons were fairly light and cooked just right.  The pork was tender and juicy while being lean.  We found the sauce to have a mild kick to go with the salty sweetness. No, these were not the typical Szechuan-style, but at the same time, they were good in their own way.

Onto the mains, everyone had a bowl of ramen except for me.  I went for the Pineapple Curry Fried Rice with BBQ Eel.  Okay, let me get this out of the way first...  This dish was really sweet.  Combining chunks of pineapple with the syrupy sweet glaze of the unagi sauce totally overwhelmed the curry essence.  This was disappointing since the fried rice itself was deliciously caramelized and nutty.  Furthermore, the large piece of buttery eel was great on its own.  Maybe this could've been 2 separate dishes.  Onto the ramen, my son ordered the Shoyu that included BBQ pork, soft boiled egg, corn, nori, fish cake, inari and bean sprouts.  All of the components were quite good including the al dente fresh ramen noodles and well-charred pork.  Egg was runny too.  However, the soup was pretty weak where we could taste the soy sauce (shoyu), but little else.  There was no depth or any other discernible flavors.

Fortunately, my daughter's Tonkotsu Ramen was more flavorful, albeit just slightly.  Consisting of the same ingredients, there wasn't anything different in that regard to the shoyu.  However, the meatiness of the 15-hour pork broth came through with umaminess and body.  With that being said, it was still lacked depth.  The best broth had to be Viv's Spicy Miso as it had a slight kick to go with the fermented bean essence.  Even with that, this was on the sweeter side and we were expecting more saltiness.  Okay, to be frank, the ramen at Nudo was actually decent.  However, with all of the ramen we've tried elsewhere, this was pretty average in comparison.  Now if we look at Nudo in a vacuum and only consider where it is located, then it becomes slightly above average.

The Good:
- Modern dining space
- Solid service
- Decent

The Bad:
- Decent for the area, but it would be lacking in a metropolitan such as Seattle