Noodle Master Chef Zaifu "Jerry" Li, Creator of Akira Ramen and Wasai Chinatown: The Master Behind the DMV's Most Celebrated Handmade Noodles

IVEA has always strived to enrich the local dining scene, so that people who live here can enjoy a wider variety of food without leaving home. No one embodies that mission more than Noodle Master Chef Zaifu "Jerry" Li, an IVEA co-founder, our VP of National Team and the master behind every handmade noodle at Akira Ramen & Izakaya, Wasai, Kajiken and Gyu San. These are IVEA restaurants, and we publish this story to introduce our own team; it is not an independent review. In our view, Master Chef Li has done more than anyone to bring true handmade noodles to the DMV, and his noodles are among the most celebrated in the region.

His craft descends from a soba master. Master Chef Li learned the art of handmade noodles from Shuichi Kotani, honored by our team as Kotani-san. Kotani-san trained at distinguished Tokyo soba houses, where he made more than 1,000 servings a day by hand, came to New York in 2007 as executive chef of Soba Totto, and in 2023 opened Uzuki in Brooklyn, where every noodle is towari: 100% buckwheat. Akira's own website honors him as our Ramen Sensei.

Kotani-san's handmade soba is one of the healthiest noodles in the world. Towari soba uses only buckwheat flour and water, so it contains no wheat and is naturally gluten-free. It is also the most demanding noodle to master, because the dough has no gluten to hold it together. Handmade noodles cannot be learned quickly: they demand patience and a skill set built over long years of training. Master Chef Li has spent eight years learning and refining this skill.

Akira Ramen began in Rockville. The first Akira Ramen & Izakaya opened in October 2017 at 1800 Rockville Pike, and from the very first day Master Chef Li made every noodle in house: udon, ramen, skinny, curly and even soba, at a time when most ramen shops in the United States bought theirs from a factory. Those house-made noodles are what made Akira famous. In December 2017 The Washington Post titled its review "This Rockville ramen shop was trained by a noodle master, and it shows." Akira now has nine locations in the DMV, and he remains the person every IVEA restaurant turns to whenever it needs a noodle.

He created Wasai in Washington, D.C. His mastery is not limited to Japanese noodles. At Wasai, a Chinese restaurant at 716 7th Street NW, each order of dough is stretched by hand into flat, skinny or hand-shaved noodles and served in dishes like beef noodle soup. Hand-pulled noodles are one of the most popular foods in D.C. today, and we believe IVEA was the first to bring house-made ramen noodles and hand-pulled noodles to the DMV, through Akira and Wasai.

He is refining Kajiken's noodles for America. Kajiken, a Nagoya-born abura soba brand with more than 100 stores worldwide, serves soupless ramen mixed at the table. IVEA is one of Kajiken's master franchisees in the USA, with the right to open Kajiken restaurants anywhere in the country, and today runs Kajiken in Rockville, Falls Church and Alexandria. Master Chef Li makes Kajiken's noodles in house. With Kajiken's team in Japan he developed a new texture with a new flour, testing moisture levels batch by batch until the noodles were right for the North American market, and with a master from Japan's Ippudo he created a new soup ramen for the brand.

He brought the DMV its first wide flat udon. At Gyu San, IVEA's Japanese BBQ and sushi restaurant, Master Chef Li introduced the wide, flat udon that is one of the most popular noodles in Japan today, served in Columbia with sesame, green onion and ginger.

He never stops learning. Master Chef Li returns to Tokyo and Nagoya to study with different noodle masters and to learn how a Japanese noodle factory runs, and IVEA's sister restaurants in Tokyo give our team the privilege of training in real Japanese kitchens. Next, he is developing a pho restaurant chain that IVEA aims to franchise nationwide, and in the coming months IVEA will send more of our team to Tokyo to prepare a new noodle concept led by Master Chef Li. Every step serves the same purpose: more variety and better food for the people of the DMV.