The Bite: Orenchi Beyond: The ramen S.F. has been waiting for?

The crowds have been lining up now that Santa Clara’s Orenchi has opened a restaurant on Valencia Street. The crowds have been lining up now that Santa Clara’s Orenchi has opened a restaurant on Valencia Street. Photo: John Storey / Special To The Chronicle Photo: John Storey / Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 10 Caption Close The Bite: Orenchi Beyond: The ramen S.F. has been waiting for? 1 / 10 Back to Gallery

A great band of ramen spans the length of the West Coast, from Orange County to Vancouver, although if we’re being honest, the northern Bay Area is not its strongest stretch.

San Francisco has birthed a few great ramen shops, of course. More recently, the city has become a magnet for ramen makers from more refined scenes, such as Men Oh (from Tokushima, Japan), Yamadaya (Los Angeles) and — as of this month — Santa Clara’s Orenchi ramen.

Those of us who have driven an hour south in order to wait 90 minutes for a bowl of Orenchi’s ramen have long been plotting our visits to Orenchi Beyond, Kuniko Ozawa’s new Valencia Street location. Getting there before the shop’s 6 p.m. opening, it turns out, is key; by 6:30, a swarm circles the sign-up sheet at the front door.

The new Orenchi Beyond was built with long waits in mind, with a plein-air entryway constructed to protect a good 25 people from rain. Those whose names are called enter a tiled room striped with banks of tables and take their places at blocky wood stools.

Most eyes are drawn to the ramen cooks par-cooking noodles and composing ramen bowls in the glass-fronted kitchen, their actions haloed in steam; it’s like watching a live feed of the gods in Asgard toiling over their work keeping the fire giants at bay. The air is filled with 1990s hip-hop, the official soundtrack of the ramen obsessive, and the smell of braised pork. As with most of California’s ramen destinations, the crowd skews XY.

Orenchi Beyond’s menu contains a page of small plates — rice bowls topped with salmon roe, fried chicken dipped in a glossy red glaze — which are grace notes, really, to the four kinds of ramen on the menu.

Those four are perhaps not as good yet as Orenchi Santa Clara, and heavy on the salt, but they’re stronger than most of Orenchi’s San Francisco competition.

Skinny, firm chu-ka soba (made with a blend of whole wheat and white flour, not buckwheat) come in a sea-inflected roasted-chicken stock, finished with soy sauce, that comes across like the soup version of pu-erh tea — earthy and brawnier than it might appear.

The soba is good. The Beyond ramen, a tonkatsu ramen flavored with toasted garlic, is even better. This long-simmered pork-bone broth is the weapon that most of the Bay Area’s best ramen shops use to joust for supremacy.

Unlike those of many competitors, Orenchi Beyond’s version does not come across as a fatty, mouth-coating sludge. It is deeply porky, but with a clean finish, lightened with dashi. Even with a mouth full of broth, you can still taste the wheat in the fat, chewy noodles and the creamy yolk that spills out of a soft-cooked egg. The chashu, or slow-roasted pork, still tastes like the meatiest element in the bowl.

You can, if you are a professional athlete or a college student, pay $1.50 more for an extra-large portion. For the rest of us, a regular-size bowl is worth the wait. Which is saying quite a lot.

Jonathan Kauffman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jkauffman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jonkauffman

If you go

The bite: Beyond ramen ($12).

Where: Orenchi Beyond, 174 Valencia St. (at McCoppin), S.F. www.orenchi-beyond.com.

When: 6-9:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 6-10:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 5-8:30 p.m. Sunday.

Extra: Chu-ka soba ($11.80).