rev:text
| - "Let's get some Japanese food"
"I love sushi"
"I meant ramen"
"Oh"
I wrote a bunch of paragraphs about how the ramen here is between decent to great. It's probably too salty for Midwesterners. It might be too fatty, too. For me, I'd rather have more salt and fat. The bao, mantou, or steambun however you want to call it - those guys were good, too.
But I don't really write reviews to tell people what's up and convince them to go to places.
Food inspires me to talk about things. And Japanese noodles in Wisco is a good start. Asian noodles riff off each other all the time, and they're constantly changing and evolving. Ramen itself was an import to Japan, and it has been undergoing more changes to its formula than almost any food. But Madison doesn't seem to take many food risks. This is a ramen shop that would be equally at home in Milwaukee or Chicago, but it's here in Madison. This place could be uniquely Madison by sourcing its products more locally (go RP's) or it could portray the idea of what Madison food *is*.
That second idea is interesting in that to me Madison food at the moment is Wisconsin food in general. It's the Old Fashioned. We have a burgeoning 'food scene' but that's for hipsters and exclusionary. There are a few standouts like Pel'Meni or Banzo, but in general it seems like most places in Madison that have tried to do something different and not established can't find any traction. I was going to bring this back to Umami and how I wish they did hipper ramen like you see in bigger cities, but I think that's an unfair burden. This is Madison, and foreign food is foreign food. We can't have too much of that.
I digress. I'm sure I'll eat here again and I'm sure I'll talk more about Madison food. Some other time tho.
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