The eminently likable Lanzhou Ramen, on the eastern edge of La Roma, is a name that neatly illustrates one of the small confusions surrounding Chinese food in Mexico. “Ramen,” of course, is Japanese; what’s served here has little to do with tonkotsu broths or miso-based soups. But the word has become a kind of marketing label applied to almost any bowl of noodles, Chinese or otherwise.
Look past the name, however, and a different picture emerges. The menu points, at least nominally, toward the northwestern Chinese tradition of Lanzhou-style noodles—clear broths, sliced beef, hand-pulled wheat noodles. But it quickly veers into a more hybrid, catch-all repertoire: stir-fried noodles, cold noodles with peanuts, dumplings labeled interchangeably as gyoza (another misnomer, gyoza being a specific Japanese potsticker), and a supporting cast of fast-food-ish fried snacks (nuggets, breaded shrimp) clearly aimed at a broader, less specialized audience. Indeed, the customers here are more local laowai than Asian.
In other words, this is not a narrowly focused Lanzhou noodle shop so much as a generalized northern-Chinese-ish menu, filtered through delivery-app logic and local expectations. The repeated use of “ramen” across the menu—ramen salteado, ramen frío, ramen estilo Xinjiang—only reinforces the point: the word is doing conceptual work, not culinary description.
Still, for those willing to read between the lines (and occasionally mistranslated labels), there are traces of something more specific here—an attempt, however diluted, to anchor the menu in the flavors and formats of China’s wheat-eating north. And they do it well. The dumplings are pleasingly chewy, the broths have depth, and the sauces kick ass. A small assortment of cold “salads” makes a good side dish.
Lanzhou Ramen
Frontera 39, Roma Nte. (see map)
Tuesday – Sunday, 12–5 p.m., 6–9 p.m. (closed Monday)
Average price p.p. $250
