Kevin Fambilay was just having fun. It was just before I got to the second seat. And he and the staff at Sticky Rice Lao Street Food were as relaxed as the team in the finals.
Among them, an all-star roster of chefs from Orlando-area foodie favorites, the exemplary Susuru, the popular new food truck Mae Tao & Sons Kitchen, and the Michelin-rated David Tsang (Norigami, which has been voted Orlando Sentinel Critic’s Best Sushi for years) and the brand new omakase kappo Tsang’s “Kapo” were as cool as Fonzie in the kitchen of Morimoto Asia in Disney Springs.
Mr. Fambirai could not make any suggestions regarding strategy. or materials. Or you could be confident of winning with the piping hot curry truffle ramen, a blend of red curry, chicken and pork soup, with 16-hour braised pork belly, duck and a small jammy egg.
“I want to have fun,” Fambirai told the Orlando Sentinel.
“I’m here with some long-time friends, and it’s just ‘let’s have fun.’ These events bring the community together. It’s a lot of fun. We don’t get to see each other very often because everyone works so hard. We’ve got some very talented chefs here and we’re just having fun.”
Apparently, fun was the secret ingredient.
Because it was Fanvilai and company who walked away with the coveted Bros Belt, a timeless piece of art that fans can now see every time they stop by the casual Mills 50 Restaurant, and the prize was placed into his hands by popular vote at Monday night’s Ramen Rumble: Battle of the Champions.
Curry Truff Ramen defeated all previous Ramen Rumble winners, including Lesser Panda Noodles, Ramen Takagi, Morimoto Asia, The Osprey, Seito Sushi Baldwin Park, and Kai Asian Street Fair. All of these made for a great match.
Tickets for the fight sold out in record time, and tickets for the event’s longtime beneficiary, Give Kids the World Village, also set a new single-night record.
A total of $17,430 was raised, bringing the total for the 10-year, eight-race series to “well over $100,000,” organizer Jason Chin of the James Beard-nominated Good Salt Restaurant Group told the Sentinel.
The first Ramen Rumble, held at Good Salt’s Baldwin Park eatery at The Osprey, was a 100-guest event inspired by random threads on the Orlando Foodie Forum, a popular Facebook page hosted by Ricki Lee’s homegrown social media hub, Tasty Chops.
“It was just a conversation,” Lee recalls of how it all started in 2016.
“People were talking about which chefs they wanted to see face off, and Jason and Sue (Chin) helped with that.”
Ramen Rumble quickly outgrew its space but found a new home at Morimoto Asia. It could accommodate about 600 guests in two seats. The celebrity judge format was abandoned in favor of people’s choice. Diners were happy to be able to judge the results. The chefs found it even more challenging. Benefits such as raffles and merchandise sales helped boost the nonprofit’s coffers. It was all win-win.
The team loved the relief from the pain of being able to play and collaborate with friends in the culinary community. As a result, the team became even stronger.
“I think one of the best things is when the community comes together to support a great cause like this,” said Yuhi Fujinaga, director of culinary at Patina Restaurant Group and a proud Morimoto Asia alumnus.
It was a common topic among chefs.
Morimoto’s returning champion, Takeshi Ikeuchi from Osaka, who won the 2022 Rumble, took second place last night with his team’s Carbonara Tonkotsu Ramen. This is a creamy dish with rich ingredients such as Dongpo pork and shrimp wontons.
“Everyone here is strong,” he said ahead of the second round. “But it always feels good doing this. We’re all here to help.”
2023 champion Michael Cooper, chef and partner at both Osprey and Thornton Park’s new hotspot Osteria Estelle, brings the power of camaraderie to the kitchen, reuniting several members of the original team who have since relocated to other cities.
Mr. Schmaltz also surprised the guests with his chicken fat and salt ramen.
“We had to do something true to the restaurant, so we made swordfish cutlet fillet,” he said. “And while many people use pork, I wanted to use chicken fat, which is so near and dear to my heart as a Jewish boy from New Jersey.
“We injected it into ramen noodles and boiled it down with XO sauce.”
Cooper and several other chefs are looking forward to bringing the dish to restaurants as a special menu, giving others a chance to try it.
2024 winner Yoko Takagi’s Nostalgic Chicken Paitan, a silky, creamy chicken soup with smoky charred chicken and buttery corn cream, should be on the menu at her eponymous Oviedo ramen shop in the coming weeks. The cooking was a labor of love.
“The word ‘nostalgia’ has the meaning of being nostalgic,” she says. “Japanese people use this word to refer to happy times in life, and I chose this word after taking inspiration from corn potage (soup), which is very popular in Japan.
“I loved it when I was a kid and would eat it every time I went to Japan. And the charcoal-grilled chicken thighs because we like to grill them, so that’s more representative of the Venezuelan side.”
A place where other chefs spin original interpretations – Saito’s doubly unkosher lobster ramen combines salt-malt lobster and pork broth with a rich punch of mentaiko butter. or Jack & Tommy Ramen with Red Panda Noodles, which pays homage to grilled cheese and tomato soup with the crunch of fried chicken and the herbal flavor of chimichurri (both will be available soon, the chef says) — Kai Asian Street Fair has returned to tradition, which is the direction for 2018.
Chef Quang Van’s strategy paid off. Chicken soy sauce ramen came in 3rd place.
“That’s how we won the first place with traditional tonkotsu while everyone else took a super creative route,” he said, expressing his excitement to be back in the mix.
“It’s exciting and nerve-wracking, but in a good way,” he said ahead of the event. “But it’s an honor just to be a part of it.”
It’s a sentiment shared by everyone, including Orlando Shine host Brendan O’Connor.
“The atmosphere is a little different this year,” he says. “We have a lot of loyal fans here who wouldn’t want to miss this event. Tickets sold out quickly, which shows how much it means to them…Many are asking what they’ll do next.”
Although Ramen has been retired for now, Chin said talk of a future Rambles is alive and well, keeping the culinary community’s collaboration, good atmosphere and Give Kids the World Village event support alive.
“The warriors ride off into the sunset!” Chin said of his competitors and their “nude” ambitions.
Though perhaps bittersweet, “it feels right,” he said.
“If there’s a buzz from underground in the foodie community, if there’s a score that needs to be settled, maybe we’ll heed that call,” he teased. “There’s going to be commotion. There’s going to be fighting. There’s going to be conflict. But we don’t know what’s going to happen. For now, the ramen is done.”
Of course, it’s not Sticky Rice, where the Championship Bowl will be broadcast in a special format next week.
Even after his victory, Fanvilai was all smiles, but as cold as his food was steaming.
“It was a really fun time and there was charity work on top of it and I’m really happy to be a part of it,” he said.
“It’s amazing. Everything is amazing.”
Want to lend a hand? Find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram @amydroo or the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com. For more fun, join our Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group.
