Detroit: Midtown’s IMA
Happy Friday! It’s your favorite Realtor with this week’s edition of Fun Food Friday. As mentioned earlier this week, we were out doing some recon for this weeks post. It is actually a revisit to one of our favorite places, featured back before the COVID shutdown . . . IMA!
We have become huge fans of noodles with rich broth. It can be Ramen, Udon or Pho. When it is done right, it is delicious. Of course we are not talking about the store bought packaged ramen, but real legitimate noodles and broth that has been simmered and seasoned for maximum flavor. Usually served with fresh veggies, a soft cooked egg and choice of protein (pork, chicken or tofu) While there are a number of noodle restaurants that have popped up all over, our favorite out of all of them has to be IMA. In an interview with the Free press in 2019, chef/owner Michael Ransom said the philosophy behind how the name came to be: “Ima in Japanese kanji means ‘now’, as in ‘in the moment,’ My philosophy behind the ‘now’ thing is that food is an escape. When you’re sitting down at a table with great food and great people … nothing else matters. It’s kind of an escape from reality a little bit. It’s that break in the middle of your day or night that really does allow time to stand still.”
This is exactly how we feel about food, which adds to the reasons why this is one of our favorite places!
We featured IMA a couple years back, and decided to revisit them to feature all the good things they have to offer, plus all the growth and new things they didn’t offer 2 years ago. IMA started their 1st restaurant in Corktown in 2017, in a small limited capacity 1500 sq ft building with some outdoor community seating. They have since grown and have 3 locations and are moving their Corktown location down the street to a larger location - the former home of Gold Cash Gold, which closed last year as one of the many COVID casualties in Detroit’s restaurant scene.
In 2019 IMA was named Restaurant of the Year by the Free Press. In this year, they also opened their 2nd Detroit location in Midtown, at the corner of Warren and Cass. This location offered them a larger space not only for dining but for a larger kitchen. This allowed them to expand their menu, adding in a fryer to make their super delicious Karrage spicy fried chicken sandwich. This was not offered at the original Corktown location. Just recently, the Midtown location stopped selling the chicken sandwich, but they do sell Karrage chicken bites which are awesome. The reason they stopped selling it, is because they opened a place next door called SuperCrisp. This new place sells the Karrage Chicken sandwich as well as many other handhelds. Definitely worth checking out.
IMA has 3 locations 2100 Michigan Ave in Corktown (to open soon), 4870 Cass at the corner of Cass and Warren in midtown and at 32033 John R in Madison Heights and they are open daily from 11AM to 10PM.
Until next week…Eat Well! Enjoy Life!
- Keith & Teresa Becker