After six weeks of blood, sweat, and miso ramen so spicy it could bring tears to your eyes, we have finally crowned a winner in The Denver Post’s annual food bracket challenge. This year, we pitted 32 of the best ramen purveyors against one another and, as always, we threw it open to readers to decide on a favorite.
In the end, 9-year-old Osaka Ramen prevailed against 1-year-old Neko Ramen & Rice in the finals of our March ramen madness with 77% of the votes.
The winners of The Denver Post ramen bracket. (Brooke Eberle, The Denver Post)
“I don’t eat a lot of ramen, since I’m around it so often, but the last ramen shop I tried was Neko, and I had a pretty great meal there,” Osaka Ramen owner Jeff Osaka said. “I was sad to see them lose, but I’m very humbled and honored at the same time. We were put up against some stiff competition.”
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James Beard-nominated chef Osaka said he was initially shocked to beat out longtime ramen veteran Uncle in the first round, among other mighty competitors, like Dragonfly Noodle. Neko Ramen & Rice might have been a newcomer after opening in a strip mall at 40th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard in January last year, but chef and owner Vincent Yu held his own with his Michelin-starred background.
Osaka also utilized his skills as a fine dining chef to make a mark on the ramen scene with a bowl of ramen so comforting you’ll forget about chicken noodle soup. He opened his underground ramen shop at 2611 Walnut St. in RiNo a block away from his conveyer-belt sushi restaurant, Sushi-Rama, in 2015. Osaka wanted to hop on the ramen trend that bled over to Colorado from New York early and has quickly won over Denverites with steaming bowls of tonkotsu and spicy miso.
“We’re going to make a specialty cocktail to celebrate the win,” Osaka said.