Near the Porter T stop, almost completely hidden in the chilly shadow of a red avant-garde windmill sculpture, one restaurant reigns supreme. There is almost no topping the treasure that is Yume Wo Katare. The restaurant’s ambience alone is deeply satisfying — a blend of casual and group effort dining , placed within a colorful setting, marinating visitors in fumes of mouth-watering, heart-stopping ramen.
But first, customers must weather the line. This is no ordinary line; by the time the restaurant has opened, there is already about an hour-long wait, wrapping around the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts as if to mock the donut shop’s empty, fluorescent-light drenched booths. People stand, shivering in masses, receiving befuddled glances and the occasional, “What’s this all about, eh?” inquiry from passing pedestrians. They scoff when they discover that everybody is “just waiting for ramen.” They do not understand.
Yume Wo Katare’s wild popularity stems from two sources. For one, the restaurant utterly embraces its hole-in-the-wall personality, opting to be boisterous and campy, abandoning all pretense of elegance. The actual space is so small that only about twenty people can eat at once (hence the line). It is set up like an authentic Japanese eatery with long, bench-like tables positioned in rows so that patrons eat as if they are part of some ramen-eating platoon of ravenous foodies. Of course, this is entirely appropriate, seeing as Yume Wo Katare only has two items on its menu: ramen with two pieces of pork and ramen with five pieces of pork. This may seem audacious — possibly even limiting. But it serves a purpose.
After pre-paying at the front register, customers can pour themselves a cup of water from a shelf, grab some chopsticks, a soup spoon and one wet wipe from a container. (Only one though. The staff is very adamant about this.) They then take their places beside other patrons who are sweating their way through, perhaps, the first third of their ramen. The chef will cheerfully ask customers whether they want garlic with their meals (they do), and the entire time patrons have been paying and gathering their utensils, both the chef and the staff have been taking other customers’ finished bowls from them, announcing in tandem one of three vociferous judgments: “perfect job,” “good job” and for the more disappointing cases, “almost.”
This is partially why the restaurant is so famous. In order to get a “good job” comment, one must consume the noodles, the pork and the vegetable roughage present in the broth. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong. Yume Wo Katare’s ramen is an artery-demolishing blend of super-fatty pork and even fattier broth. The broth alone is a meal; combined with the other ingredients, its decadence is almost shameless and borders on surreal. Getting a “perfect job” entails that one has finished everything, broth and all. The staff will ask for the name on anyone who finishes their bowl so that they can announce that, “______ got a perfect!” to the entire restaurant. This receives varied levels of enthusiasm from fellow customers depending on how focused they are on trying to finish their own meal. Getting an “almost” (announced in a weary groan) is disappointing, but understandable under the circumstances.
So, beneath the cheery teal glow of the surrounding walls, customers will slowly begin to work through their meals ?— meals which proclaim that simple does not mean lacking in flavor, and that ramen does not have to be relegated to dorm room cooking.
The ramen is, despite its ludicrous composition, extremely delicious. And with everybody buckling under the mutual strain of trying to shovel down one more spoonful of noodles, there’s a sense of camaraderie — that customers have not only earned the right to partake in but which they give themselves up to entirely. Never before have a group of people been so focused on finishing a meal. With one wet wipe in tow, patrons do their best to conquer the ramen monstrosity before them — though they will inevitably do their worst. Because anybody credulous enough to wait an hour in line, simply to have somebody praise them for eating too much ramen, is already lost in some capacity. But this spectacular defeat is well worth the wait.
