Menya Gumi: Ramen, Donburi, and Epic Sandos in New Haven

I lived in Japan for four years in the early 2000s. I spent much time eating my way around Tokyo and the Kanto sprawl. Surely much has changed in those 20 years since I left. Still, I long for the food I left behind. Not the flashy foods of trendy restaurants I visited (and loved). I miss the fried chicken skewers from 7-11, Circle K egg salad sandos, and the noodles of all the quick-bite ramen shops without chairs, for none of which I remember names. Yoshinoya, Pot & Pot, and sushi go-rounds that didn’t serve elaborate rolls. I miss all the places in the cavernous Shinjuku Station underground with their window displays of plastic katsu curry and oyaku-don.

Yeah. It’s the love the Japanese food culture places into even it’s fast(ish) food that I’ve sought since coming back to the states. Occasionally, some of my old friends who were there with me will send pics of some gem they found in a strip mall. I do the same. But of the handful of places that I found, none takes me back there like Menya Gumi.

Angel Cheng opened Menya Gumi in March 2020, right as the pandemic hit the U.S. Menya survived to deliver an upgraded touch to the food of my past. Cheng works somewhere between Japanese tradition and American food crazes. He didn’t plan to run a ramen shop, however. He started at Johnson and Wales as a baking and pastry student. He worked around Hong Kong--where he grew up--looking for pastry jobs, and baking bread.

“I was looking for anything and everything back then,” he says. 

That’s how he kept finding his way into kitchens. And after those long kitchen shifts he’d take to the streets of Hong Kong to eat ramen.

“There was never a moment of disappointment with ramen,” he says. “It was the best meal every time.”

That love of ramen led him to Japan, where he hopped in and out of any ramen shops that would take him in. He soon discovered that the bowls, served up fast and hot and apparently effortlessly, actually have deep layers of complexity that hide under the facade of simple food.

“The beauty is in the simplicity of the bowls,” he says. “And the best ramen shops I visited were totally focused on a small menu.”

The infusion of Japanese cuisine into American culture has brought us all things miso, koji everything, and dashi made from locally foraged mushrooms. I love that stuff; don’t get me wrong. Hell, I’ve even put it into bread dough at Atticus Bakery. But the wave of Americanized Japanese staples tends to distract from the simple focus of the ramen bowls Cheng talks about.

“I want to see everything in the bowl,” he says. “The glistening chicken fat, the gooey egg.”

The menu at Menya Gumi doesn’t end with ramen. Cheng has selected a few other dishes, all of which rewind me to the days of stumbling from Roppongi night clubs long after daylight, seeking the nourishment needed to train it home, semi-conscious and satisfied.

There’s the katsu-don with its tender, fried pork cutlet. The shoyu chintan with its torched pork belly, its crisp exterior, floating on that medicinal broth besides an ajitama. Oh, and that fluffy egg sando on simple white bread, smeared with Kewpie. Yes, the egg sando. Like all Cheng’s dishes, it looks so simple. But it’s a master of deception. And I eat it on the side of every meal at Menya Gumi. Cheng pulls that sando straight from my Circle K dreams and resets it fresh on a plate instead of a grab-and-go package.

It's hard to please me with Japanese food. I’m demanding and elitist. Nostalgia has placed those dishes on the pedestal of my memory. So tapping into my ever-more-distant past requires a sharp eye and constant practice.

“I’m always seeking better ingredients and presentation,” Cheng says. “I’m always improving the bowl.”

Oh, and one more thing… Did I mention they have Pokka Coffee in the can? Well, they do. And if you ask nicely Cheng will heat the can for you, as if it dropped from those magical vending machines.

Menya Gumi 165 Orange St, New Haven, CT 06510 (203) 535-0302