This New Breakfast Ramen Portal Will Change Your Idea of Brunch Forever
This is not the kind of brunch you end up stumbling out of at 3pm; it’s an antidote to the bottomless mimosa crushing, music blasting, fist pumping, football games on the TV-type brunch that we often see all over Manhattan.
Chef Rāsheeda Purdie is changing the cringeworthy stereotype that brunch has earned with a New York twist on Japanese zen vibes that will soothe your soul. Like her previous pop-up experiences, you’re sure to walk away with a whole new perspective on ramen. Her upcoming Rise + Dine pop-up series at Sommewhere (on Essex) features bowls of ramen with flavors that mimic a classic American brunch and a vibe that does the complete opposite.
“This is Rise with me and Dine with me, literally. It’s not rise and turn-up.”
said Purdie, referring to the profusion of bottomless mimosa brunches at restaurants around the city. “You’re gonna unwind with me real quick before your week starts.” Primed to shake up brunch culture, Purdie will envelop her guests with relaxing elements like hot tea, burning sage, and a Jazz playlist she curated herself. If your therapist were ever to recommend brunching, this is where they would send you.
Chef Rāsheeda Purdie 📸: Angela Bankhead (@abankhead)
Purdie, a stylist turned chef who has worked with culinary legends of the city like Marcus Samuelsson, JJ Johnson, and Melba Wilson, held many roles in the restaurant industry, including back of house, hosting, and management. Having been confined to her home after restaurants were forced to shut down during the pandemic, Rāsheeda learned how to slow down and appreciate each moment; but she also learned a new skill, devoting much of her extended downtime to research about ramen.
“We went from hard, hard, hard, hard, hard, hard, yes chef, working nights, to… stop. I had to adjust to that. I had to learn how to relax, I had to learn how to sit, listen, rest. Ramen came out of that.”
Determined to share her pandemic passion, Rāsheeda launched Ramen by Rā, a way for her to offer exclusive rāmen experiences through restaurant partnerships. She also teaches ramen demo classes with The Institute of Culinary Education.
Purdie’s availability for this pop-up just so happened to land on the weekend brunch hour. While some may reserve that time slot for shaking off a hangover with bloody marys, Purdie saw it as an opportunity to show New Yorkers a different way to brunch.
Gravlax ramen 📸: Angela Bankhead (@abankhead)
The early time slot also inspired the menu for this pop-up. Brunch classics like bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches, gravlax, everything bagels, and BLTs will take on the form of ramen at Rise + Dine. Coincidentally, Rāsheeda discovered "asa-ra," Japanese breakfast ramen culture. In Japan, eating ramen for breakfast has been common since the early 1900s. Perhaps we should have been eating ramen for breakfast all along; it certainly would’ve saved some of us from a number of painful hangovers. Rāsheeda gave us the inside scoop about her anti turn-up brunch series and how a few of her interests collided to form its identity. The series will run on weekends in November and December. Tickets to the event are limited and you can find them here.
We sat down with Rāsheeda over a bowl of ramen to talk about her approach to ramen, life and the vibe you can expect to experience at Rise & Dine:
Reece: Do you ever eat ramen in the morning?
Rāsheeda: Yeah, why not? We already have pork in it, that’s your bacon. We already have the egg in it, there’s your egg. I just think it’s enhancing breakfast, or it’s an early start to what you’re already probably gonna crave in a couple hours anyway.
Reece: I was gonna say, I am not a big breakfast person and I’m almost always craving something substantial that I would want for lunch or dinner in the morning.
Rāsheeda: And it could hold you over, so I understand that completely. Especially as it relates to more savory and heavy options. So the thought behind it all too is like, do people want soup that heavy in the morning? Well, that shouldn’t be the case because you eat pancakes, you’ll eat steak and eggs, chicken and waffles; those are heavy, that’s not parfait, that’s not oatm- I mean oatmeals heavy too, depending on how you make it. So I said well, since these items are already associated with breakfast why not see how it plays with ramen?
Reece: One of the first times I went out to eat ramen, I think it was pork tonkatsu. It had the char siu pork and the soft-boiled egg and I was like, “This is the best preparation of bacon and eggs I’ve ever had in my life.”
Rāsheeda: Why not? And it’s so cool because I have five bowls, one of them being baconeggandcheese. I’m not a really big cheese and ramen fan. However, the way I made the cheese helps balance it a little bit more. When I say I’m not a big fan of cheese in ramen that means when people literally put tons and load it on. So I made my cheese into a crunch component and baked it off into crisps so that it melts into the broth very slowly instead of overpowering the broth and noodles. I’m really passionate about my broth so I don’t want anything to change it up that much.
Reece: It’s smart to put the crisps on the side of the bowl so people can decide for themselves what they want to do with them.
Rāsheeda: Yes, it’s up to you. And then you have your seasoned egg, and that alone will enhance the broth. These toppings and layers are there to merge together through the fat, the creaminess, the texture, the slurpiness, and all of those things should compliment each other. One shouldn’t overpower another, it should just be a well-balanced bowl.
Reece: Are you gonna have any interesting drinks too?
Rāsheeda: First on the menu is Hot Toddy and I may add a cider mimosa. Hot Toddy is definitely a huge focus because it connects and I want this experience to really be something soothing to the soul. So I’m down for the warm, I’m down for the fog coming out of the bowl, and the cup, and the teapots. It’s all of that. It’s literally the opposite of what we as Americans associate brunch with; which is “turn-up” if you will, or unlimited. This is different. You’re gonna listen to jazz, you’re gonna see the sage burning and smell the sage. You’re gonna unwind with me real quick before your week starts.
So you can just ease your way into the day vs. (Ra claps) boom non-stop go-go-go. We’re already non-stop go-go-go. Ease your way into this new day. Rise and Dine, alright?
Reece: Tell me about your ramen journey. What got you so into ramen?
Rāsheeda: We eat it when we’re broke and we eat it when we’re not broke. You can make a bowl for 10 dollars and you can go to a fancy, nice MICHELIN-starred spot and get a bowl for 40 bucks. The range is night and day. However, it’s all in the obsession I have. So literally just enjoying it as a diner for many, many years and then the pandemic pushed the envelope for me because all the restaurants were closed unfortunately. And I was like ok… you have all this time off… we ‘bout to figure out how to make some good ramen or at least get close to it, right? This (Rise + Dine) wasn’t the thought. It was like, we just need some ramen, we’re in lockdown. Something’s missing and I think it’s broth. Then you get in this wave of let’s go to the store, let’s go to the market, let’s go get some noodles, let’s get these things that will enhance the broth like onions, mirepoix, dashi, kombu, dried mushrooms; all of these things that I start to learn and research about. Literally night and day I would just make ramen broth. It was like, do you want to learn how to make great noodles or do you want to learn how to make great broth? So I said, no I’ll make great broths, the noodles can just be something I can pick up along the way. I wanted to take on broth because of how much time it takes. One broth cooked for an hour turns totally different in the second hour, totally different in the third, and so on and so on. I enjoy that timeframe of learning how to build flavor. Every hour looks different and every hour tastes different. That’s just magical to me.
Reece: So, ramen is your medium. You use ramen as a canvas for whatever is inspiring you. Now, in this instance with Rise + Dine, it’s the morning with breakfast ramen.
Rāsheeda: Exactly. I wanted to learn how to still have a work-life balance because ramen can take up your whole day between the prep, the service, and the clean-up. It really is a full day. So I said, how could I work backwards? How could I work more at night and the early mornings so I can set it up and be done by mid-afternoon? So, that’s where the idea of brunch came from. I wanted to take the components of what we, as Americans, eat for breakfast and put them in the form of soup.
Reece: You bring your own background into the ramen so it seems like you’re doing it in a way that reflects your own style while being totally respectful.
Rāsheeda: Absolutely. You gotta be humble. And you gotta do your due diligence. So, in my research coming across ramen being popular in Northern Japan for breakfast, I needed to understand that. They enjoy eating it in the morning, so why can’t we?
Steve: Is there anything they put in Japanese breakfast ramen that’s different from typical ramen?
Rāsheeda: No, it’s just that they eat it in the morning. But since we’re strict about breakfast in America, I am going to load these bowls up with breakfast ingredients because we’re visual when it comes to food and you gotta bring those eyes to the plate first. That’s the stylist in me from years ago coming out in these bowls.
Reece: I think that the concept could really take off. There must be other crazy people out there like me who crave these kinds of foods in the morning.
Rāsheeda: What do you crave after a night of drinking?
Reece: I crave ramen or pho.
Rāsheeda: That’s what I’m trying to do. You went out on a Friday night or Saturday night and you really have that craving. Guess who’s open? And if you decide to come in and you’re hungover, my music is gonna be soothing, it’s gonna put you right in the spot you need to be.
Steve: I feel like there’s an underlying story about mental health. Because you created this pop-up to create more balance in your life. Is that right?
Rāsheeda: I learned ramen during a very dark time, right? However, learning and reading and watching documentaries on ramen specifically was very soothing during the pandemic. Ramen by Ra really came out of a very soothing time for me, because we went from hard, hard, hard, hard, hard, hard, yes chef, working nights, to stop. I had to adjust to that. I had to learn how to relax, I had to learn how to sit, listen, rest. Ramen came out of that.
We’re not in that lockdown stage anymore, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to still take it easy.
Steve: I don’t know what you’re thinking the headline of this is but I think one potential angle is, “Ramen by Ra is healing New York through ramen.”
Rāsheeda: That’s how I feel about ramen. It soothes your soul. That’s how I feel about Jazz. It soothes your soul. That’s how I feel about tea. All of these elements that I’m bringing into this experience even if it’s burning sage or incense, that stuff is to relax you.
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