Uncle

Denver, CO (The Joy of Food) — For anyone planning a trip to the Mile High City, one word will come up over and over again as you consider places to eat: Uncle.

And for good reason. The chicken ramen here is no joke; it is life-changing.

Like many of the world’s great dishes, the broth for the chicken ramen came about as a stroke of good fortune. Uncle’s chef and owner Tommy Lee (no, not that one) came upon the recipe purely by accident, throwing together ingredients one night for a staff meal. And the rest is history, as they say.

At Uncle, he has turned the flavors of his youth into the restaurant of the moment. Lee is a Denver native, but his parents are from Hong Kong and other family lived in France, and traveling to each place as a kid was formative. Because of his experiences growing up, he’s geared toward authentic flavor profiles and mixing their aggressiveness or subtlety. He lacks any serious cooking credentials — he never went to cooking school, and he doesn’t even call himself a chef — but he is someone who loves good food.

The thing you’ll want to visit for — the chicken ramen — comes together with chicken confit in a spicy sesame broth topped with bean sprouts, scallions, and a soft-boiled egg. It’s a broth so creamy and velvety brought about by a holy trinity: tahini sauce, soy sauce, and chili oil, all reinforced by the egg in the end. 

Uncle’s noodles are firm and chewy, as they should be, but a great broth is the soul of the bowl. No meal is ever as incendiary as I’d like, but this brings a subtle heat that doesn’t overpower the nuances of each element. And for me, all ramen roads usually lead to pork, but here, I didn’t miss the pork at all. This had all the smoky, robust layers you expect in a ramen with none of the heaviness that’s usually prevalent in tonkotsu flavor bombs. Uncle tries to create the same taste for vegetarians by using a veggie-miso base finished with wild mushrooms, snap peas, watermelon radish, and fried tofu.

If ramen isn’t your thing, the buns are excellent and a perfect starter or light dinner plate, expertly cooked and topped mindfully with tangy sauces, crunchy vegetables, and a protein of your choice. They come two to a plate, stuffed with pork belly, hoisin, and cucumber; fried soft-shell crab with green papaya slaw and a cilantro nam prik; or crispy, succulent eggplant with mustard seeds, miso mayo, and cabbage.

There are other small plates to enjoy including Uncle’s rendition of edamame, served with poke sauce, miso powder, serrano, and lime. It’s a spicy, gooey concoction that adds an extra kick of heat, subtle in the beginning and slowly gaining traction once you swallow and think you’re in the clear. 

Inside, Uncle’s open kitchen gives you a front-row seat to the hyper-balladic action and puts the hard work and long hours of restaurant line cooking on full display. Things could easily turn chaotic in the hands of a lesser team. Uncle’s staff is hard-working, laid back, and friendly and made up of a bunch of cool dudes who like what they do and stand behind the food and flavors they create. If they give you a recommendation, take it. It will be dead on.

As you’d expect, there are a few catches: Uncle is dinner-only and doesn’t take reservations. The place is tiny and most of the seating is outdoors. When it’s cold in Denver, which is often, the patio is closed and the wait time goes from long to interminable.

On the upside, there are several bars nearby in the hip and happening Highlands area where you can park yourself while you wait.

Written by Joy

Thanks for reading. The Joy of Food blog celebrates eating well, traveling often, and living la dolce vita. San Diego, California is home base, but thoughts are from all over. Reviews and photos help to highlight wonderful (or not) food experiences from around the world.

Leave a comment below or get in touch with me via my About page.