I would simply use a 8051 with enough pins to connect directly to the external RAM. The FPGA seems like quite bit of effort in this project with no particular value. For example if you use the Cygnal C8051F126 you can directly connect the SRAM A0->A15, D0->D7, CE, OE, and WE signals to the SRAM with NO additional logic required if you use the EMIF (Wxternal Memory Interface) on this part.