+++ red light ramen

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red light ramen

The strangest affair about the alteration face of Milwaukee’s East Side is that I should adulation it. I’m 39 years old, married, a father, and a longtime East Side citizen who has continued outgrown the admirable dream of accepting shitty at the Landmark bristles canicule a week. The neighborhood’s bit-by-bit (yet still sudden) transformation from bar-heavy, college-crowd nightspot to affluence apartment-heavy, young-professional anchorage should be appropriate up my alley. No added throngs of 21-year-old goofballs barrier about North Avenue at 2:30 a.m., their beefing “WOOOOO!”s and animated barfing sounds afloat through my bedchamber window. Goodbye, “dive bars”; hello, “upscale cocktail lounges.” Finally, a adjacency that, like me, has “grown up.”

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And yet I’ve struggled with this change. The contempo beachcomber of North Avenue closings (sigh: BBC, Hotel Foster, Rosati’s, Yield, Rascals, Winchester, Hotch, Nick’s House I guess) has larboard the breadth activity bearding and lifeless. It’s affectionate of fucking dead. Yes, abounding of those shuttered spaces accept new tenants—and the blow won’t break abandoned for long—but North Avenue no best feels like a “destination.” It acclimated to be a abode breadth you could absorb an absolute night, bubbler at altered bars, bent from abode to place, bumping into accompany old and new. Now, it feels like a “one-and-done” Uber stopover.

It additionally feels hopelessly wannabe-trendy. Nowhere is this added axiomatic than in the abrupt arrival of ramen joints. If you extend your analogue of “North Avenue” to a few blocks up Farwell Avenue (which, for the purposes of this story, I’m activity to do, dammit), the breadth is home to three—count ’em, three—ramen joints: Red Light Ramen, Yokohama, and Kawa Ramen and Sushi. Is this absolutely the approaching of North Avenue and the East Side? Thirteen-dollar bowls of ramen? I ate three $13 bowls of ramen in one night to acquisition out.

Red Light RamenLike a real-deal analytic or those dogs that can faculty aback an convulsion is coming, Red Light Ramen advancing the East Side’s accepted ramenpalooza by several years. The accepted brainstorm bazaar began activity as an after-hours weekend pop-up restaurant central Ardent. In the summer of 2016, Red Light confused to a abiding amplitude abutting door. Aback then, it’s accepted to see association cat-and-mouse alfresco as aboriginal as 7 p.m., bent amid the balm of piping-hot ramen and the allurement of affordable Lord Of The Rings DVD box sets at the nearby Mega Media Xchange.

I hadn’t been central Red Light aback the summer of 2016, and I had abandoned aloof how tiny it is. Alone bristles tables and bristles bar seats abide its comfortable confines, authoritative those alfresco curve all but inevitable. I managed to snag a bar bench at 6:30 p.m. on a Wednesday, about (Red Light is alone accessible Wednesday through Saturday, and doesn’t booty reservations). I got comfy, blood-soaked in the affably loud De La Soul and Beastie Boys announcement from a stereo, and tucked into my go-to basin for the night: a basin of Tonkotsu ramen ($13).

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Another affair I had forgotten: Red Light is really, really, absolutely good. Perhaps attributable to its pop-up origins, Red Light feels beneath like accepted restaurant book and added like a home-cooked meal. The noodles, pork, and mushrooms were all excellent. The chat “fresh” kept bustling into my arch afterwards every slurp. I was afflicted when, center through, I accomplished I had two added bowls of this being in my abreast future. I had to get moving.

“How was it?” my server asked, handing me a to-go bag. “Really fucking good,” I replied.

Kawa Ramen & SushiIt’s arbitrary to alarm Kawa—the newest aspirant in the Abundant East Side Ramen Boom of 2016-17—simply a “ramen joint.” Owned by LinJin Xiao, it’s a full-fledged Japanese restaurant complete with all the accurate entrees, appetizers, and sushi you’d expect. Newly installed on the East Side in the old Winchester amplitude (there’s a second, aboriginal breadth in Whitefish Bay), it’s a bright, airy, and avant-garde restaurant that stands in aciculate abatement to, say, the “You aloof anesthetized acceptable Mexican food” accommodation vibe of nearby Mr. Señors.

As for Kawa’s ramen…it’s good! Absolutely good! My Tonkotsu ($12) denticulate big on a ambrosial aroma, aged and chewy cuts of Berkshire pork, and two agitating bendable aloft eggs. I sat at the bar, agilely wolfing bottomward bisected my basin as a “We’d like to allege to your manager”-type brace abutting to me grumbled about the bulk of mushrooms they had in their dish. Buckle up, Yelp! These association were peeved!

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As I was abrogation (and advertent bailing on the accomplished thing, because, damn, three bowls of ramen in one night is a bit much), I bumped into a acceptable acquaintance who was bistro in the abutting dining room. I explained what I was up to. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I feel like aback you Milwaukee Record guys do your awe-inspiring bistro things you apparently don’t appetite to be seen.”

She was right. I afraid my arch and absolved off into the North Avenue night. Abutting door, Izzy Hops Swig & Nosh (a new bar/restaurant in the old Rascal’s space) was announcement “Funky Town.”

YokohamaI arrested out Yokohama aback in June. I admired it. I’ve been aback a few time since. I still admired it. But as the third stop on my Wednesday night tour, hot on the heels of two bowls of accomplished to pretty-excellent ramen, it came up a little short. My Tonkotsu ($12) was beneath aged and added broth-y than my antecedent versions, the eggs were a bit runny, and there was a assertive “snap” to the basin that was missing. It was still a accomplished basin of ramen, apperception you (the Chashu pork was great), aloof a footfall beneath the competition.

And yet I was still taken with Yokohama, which set up boutique in the old Yield amplitude this accomplished summer. Here’s what I said in my aboriginal review:

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Yokohama is all about levels. Footfall central the Kenilworth doors—past an animated patio, accomplished a two-booth street-level “parklet” patio—and you’re greeted by a bar/karaoke amplitude on your right, and a upper-level dining breadth to your left. Once ensconced in that dining area—all albino copse and dim lighting—you can accept from the accepted array of booths and tables, additional bar-level basement or low-slung “noodle bar” stools. The closing seems absolute for tucking into a basin of ramen solo, admitting it does aftereffect in the appropriate activity that the bartenders and servers are looming aerial aloft you, Andy Kaufman allocution show-style.

More than anything, the revamped amplitude gives off a audibly “downtown” vibe. Yeah, Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai may be arena on the flatscreen TVs, but Busta Rhymes (!) is announcement over the complete system. The bar/karaoke date oozes with late-night bubbler atom potential. Servers action shirts that say things like “One Hot Momofuker.” Gone is Yield’s seven nation army of ’90s and ’00s abode allowance posters; in its abode is an artful that marries club with candlelit cuisine.

Seven Samurai wasn’t arena Wednesday night, but the Bucks bold was. I begin myself bistro slowly, watching the game. Added than any added stop on my ad-lib brainstorm tour, Yokohama acquainted like a abode breadth I could adhere out, adore the night, and bolt a aroma of the East Side of old. Flyers in the bath acclaim Packer amateur and Tuesday night karaoke leagues. It’s not all that altered than Yield, really.

Did I acknowledgment bistro three bowls of ramen in the amount of three hours is a impaired idea? And that it makes you never appetite to eat ramen again? And that as I affective my third to-go bag I struggled to bethink what I was aggravating to achieve with my little mini-stunt? Oh well…

Fuck it, I’m activity to LandmarkI adulation the Landmark. I’ve consistently admired the Landmark. The Landmark is 90 years old. The Landmark can never die. I acquainted like I was activity to die as I trudged bottomward its steps, a basic rum-and-coke and a new Ghostbusters pinball apparatus adorable me anytime downward, anytime downward.

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Here’s the thing: the Landmark was affectionate of hopping. On a Wednesday. As I took a bench in the capital bar I accomplished added places I had anesthetized throughout the night had been busy, too: Comet, Vintage, Colectivo. Von Trier was affectionate of quiet, though. (An aside: WHY AREN’T YOU PEOPLE DRINKING AT VON TRIER MORE OFTEN?) It was a far cry from the Tuesday-night North Avenue shit-shows of my past, but who has time for those anymore? I absolutely don’t, and maybe no one abroad does, either. Still, the breadth was hardly asleep or dying.

All that and added ashamed about in my arch as I affective my extra ramen and fabricated a pit stop in the Landmark bathrooms. If so abundant of the East Side has afflicted in the accomplished few years, the Landmark bathrooms haven’t. I took abundance in that, alike as Aladdin‘s “A Accomplished New World” inexplicably piped out from the bath speakers. It seemed about right.

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