Four signature ramen bowls on the Ugly Dumpling ramen menu. The signature UGLY Ramen sets the brand identity with hand-pulled noodles in a chili-laced pork broth. Three Japanese classics — Tonkotsu, Miso and Chicken — round out the lineup with the broth profiles that built ramen's worldwide reputation.
Ramen (ラーメン) is a Japanese noodle soup with Chinese ancestry — wheat noodles, a deeply seasoned broth and a constellation of toppings that vary by region. Tokyo runs shoyu (soy-sauce based); Sapporo claims miso; Hakata in Kyushu defined the milky, bone-cooked tonkotsu. At Ugly Dumpling, the four-bowl lineup covers the most-ordered styles in the U.S. and adds the kitchen's own chili-laced signature: UGLY Ramen.
Every bowl on this menu is $16 — a deliberately flat price so the order is about flavor, not budget. All four bowls share the same hand-pulled wheat noodles, soft-cooked egg, scallion and bok choy garnish; the difference is the broth and the protein. UGLY is the chili-pork bowl with chashu; Tonkotsu is a 12-hour pork-bone broth, silky and milk-white; Miso is fermented-soybean rich and slightly sweet; Chicken is a clear, comforting shio-style stock for diners who want pork-free.
Ramen is the only category here that absolutely cannot wait. Out of the kitchen, you have about five minutes before the noodles soften and the broth dulls — so order it, eat it fast, and pair it with a Soup Dumpling appetizer that holds up to a slow start.
Same noodles, same garnishes, four different broths. $16 each.
The namesake bowl — hand-pulled noodles in a chili-laced pork broth with chashu, soft egg, scallion and bok choy.
View dish →Creamy 12-hour pork bone broth — silky, opaque, deeply savory. Topped with chashu, soft egg, bok choy.
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Rich fermented-miso base with springy ramen noodles. The Hokkaido classic — bold, lightly sweet.
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Slow-simmered chicken broth in clear shio-style — light, comforting, the only pork-free ramen on the menu.
View dish →Broth, color, body, heat, calories and protein — all four bowls at a glance.
| Bowl | Broth base | Color | Body | Heat | Protein | ~Cal | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UGLY Ramen | Chili-pork | Red-amber | Medium-rich | ●●●○○ | Chashu pork + egg | 820 | $16 |
| Tonkotsu Ramen | Pork bone (12hr) | Milk-white | Heavy / silky | — | Chashu pork + egg | 880 | $16 |
| Miso Ramen | Miso + chicken stock | Caramel-brown | Medium-bold | — | Chashu pork + egg | 760 | $16 |
| Chicken Ramen | Chicken / shio | Pale gold | Light / clear | — | Sliced chicken + egg | 680 | $16 |
Calories include a full bowl with broth, noodles, one egg and standard toppings.
Ramen rewards speed. The same bowl that hits 9/10 in minute one drops to 6/10 by minute eight as the noodles bloat. Here's the real ramen-shop sequence.
Before anything else, take one spoonful of broth. This sets your flavor baseline and signals the kitchen took the seasoning seriously. Most ramen judges score on this single sip.
Slurping is technique, not noise. The intake of cool air drops the noodle temperature on its way to your mouth and aerates the broth coating. In Japan it's a quiet compliment.
Eat the egg in two halves — early bite, late bite — so the yolk distributes through the bowl. Eat half the chashu first; save the second slice as a final reward.
The noodles will go soft after about 5 minutes. If you can't finish, eat the noodles first — leftover broth is the part that holds up best to the take-home box.
All ramen contain: wheat (noodles), soy, egg.
UGLY, Tonkotsu, Miso: pork · Tonkotsu & UGLY: heavy pork-bone stock · Miso: fermented soybean (heavier sodium).
None of the four ramen bowls is currently gluten-free or vegan. The closest plant-based alternative is Vegetable Stir-fried Noodles ($12) from the noodles category.
Six diner profiles, six clear answers.
Tonkotsu Ramen — the most ordered ramen in the U.S., for good reason. Creamy, comforting, no surprises.
Tonkotsu at 880 cal / $16 = the heaviest bowl on the menu, gram for dollar.
Ramen is — surprisingly — a relatively recent dish. The form arrived in Japan from China in the early 20th century via Yokohama Chinatown, where Cantonese cooks served wheat-noodle soups to dock workers. The dish was originally called shina soba (Chinese soba). After WWII, with Japan struggling under U.S. wheat-flour aid, ramen exploded as cheap, calorie-dense fuel and quickly localized into regional styles.
The four pillars: shoyu (Tokyo, soy-based, 1910s), tonkotsu (Hakata, Kyushu, pork-bone, 1940s), miso (Sapporo, Hokkaido, 1955) and shio (Hakodate, salt-based, the oldest variant). Ugly Dumpling carries miso, tonkotsu, and a shio-style chicken — three of the four — and adds its own chili-pork UGLY bowl as a fifth-pillar nod to Sichuan-Japanese fusion that's only really emerged in the past decade.
What's distinctive: the kitchen serves a flat $16 price across the entire ramen category — unusual at independent ramen shops where premium broths typically command a $4–$6 upcharge. Same noodles, same egg, same bok choy garnish across all four bowls; you're paying for the broth.
