Zaru will bring handmade Japanese udon noodles to Mills 50

Udon noodles happen to be my favorite noodle — thick, slick, chewy, yet porous enough to absorb all the flavors of a broth. For years, I'd pay Sushitomi on South John Young Parkway a weekly visit just to indulge in a comforting slurp.

Now, thanks to James Beard-nominated restaurateurs Johnny and Jimmy Tung, we'll have a noodle shop specializing in these superlative, square-shaped squigglers, and the pair aren't holding back.

Zaru will open this September at 1114 E. Colonial Drive next door to Tien Hung Market with a 25-seat dining room and open kitchen. The concept will allow guests to enjoy scratch-made udon noodles, handcrafted from premium Japanese flour sourced from Kagawa prefecture, the birthplace of udon. The Tungs will also bring specialized equipment — including an udon-making machine — from Kagawa to raise the udon-eating IQ of noodle lovers in Orlando.

"We wanted to carry on the 500-year-old noodle making tradition," Johnny says of Zaru. "Traveling throughout Japan earlier this year, I loved how the udon tasted there, and wanted to bring that experience back to Florida."

The menu will also offer chilled zaru udon, ikura shiso udon, Edo-style tempura and crab gyoza, as well as Japanese beers and sake. Customizable noodle bowls will also be available.

Zaru, named after the Japanese bamboo colander often used to drain noodles, is being designed by Make Studios (Soseki, Camille, Viet-Nomz) and will be just one of one of "several" concepts the Tung Brothers have planned for the 10,000-square-foot space neighboring the longstanding Vietnamese market.

While they're keeping mum about those projects, work continues on Sorekara, the ambitious and highly anticipated restaurant headed up by chef William Shen promising a reimagined level of Japanese dining to Baldwin Park.

It's shaping up to be another busy year for the brothers, who just recently launched Camille and the Foreigner and are poised to open 10-seat omakase concept Kōsen in Tampa in the coming weeks.

Zaru will be open daily for lunch and dinner.  Follow @Zarufl for all the latest updates.

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