Moriya Shokudo in Koreatown Makes National List of Top New Ramen Spots

Yelp recently released a list of the best new ramen restaurants in the United States and coming in at No. 9 in the top 25 is Dallas' Moriya Shokudo, a Japanese street food spot. It's tucked away in a Koreatown food court off Harry Hines and opened last May.

The user review-based site based its picks on nationwide trends, essentially making this pick the equivalent of a people’s choice award. We’ve expressed opinions on the city’s best ramen before (including in our annual Best Of issue), but we're always hungry for whatever's new. And as every restaurant manager loves to say, “The customer’s always right.” So naturally, we had to go see what all the fuss is about.

The food court itself is rather inconspicuous. It’s called Shin Chon, but if you aren't aware of that tidbit (like we weren't), you might wind up driving in circles looking for it (like we did).

It doesn’t help that the warehouse it’s located in is nestled among dozens of others just like it, containing everything from perfume shops to cellphone repair services.

Once we finally stumbled upon Shin Chon, it was like finding hidden treasure. The food court, which also offers Chinese, Korean and Nicaraguan food, occupies the right half of the space. The left half is a grocery store with an array of Korean goods ranging from dried noodles to face masks. A produce container topped with a display of paper parasols splits the two sides.
While the staff is hard at work in the kitchen, customers at Moriya Shokudo can walk up to a screen to select and customize their orders. The menu has a wide variety of soups, curry dishes and appetizers as well as bottled teas and juices to drink. We were there on the promise of high-quality ramen, though, so we selected the Classic Shoyu. It took a little under 10 minutes for the food to come out.

The broth was just the right amount of salty and the noodles and eggs were cooked to perfection and had a great consistency. The egg is served hard-boiled, but the yolk was still soft and juicy.
We also had the double cheese miso soup, and as with the ramen, the broth was the main event. It’s good enough to sip on its own, but the eggs, vegetables, nori and cheese are all delectable additions.

Moriya Shokudo shares about 15 tables with the other businesses in the food court. When we went on a Wednesday evening, three others were occupied. It seemed to be getting busier as we were leaving at around 7 p.m.

While we had a smooth and quick experience, the shared space and relatively low capacity are something to keep an eye on should this spot get more attention and, we hope, business.

Overall, we get the hype. We enjoyed Moriya Shokudo, whose ramen was certainly worthy of the recognition, as well as the vibe of Shin Chon as a whole. Next time we’re craving ramen, Nicaraguan food or a quality Korean face mask, we know where to go.

Moriya Shokudo, 11422 Harry Hines Blvd, No. 210. Monday – Friday, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.