RAMEN

It's easy to see why Bourdain sweats Asia so much. Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, even Korean cuisines work from fundamental ingredients that are going to appeal to gutsy chefs, especially those with a predilection for country French. Pork, soy, chili, noodle - that's it, really. And the shortlist is augmented with every single animal part one can imagine: all the way from gizzard to gonad.

The magic is taking a few ingredients and making something sublime. It's not difficult to do if you've got good ingredients. Ask Keller about that. He's the fucking Grand Poobah of local source par excellence. I'm sure he's into Asian cuisine, too. Probably not so into ramen, though. It's saddled with a shitty conotation from the start: College food. I've never been to Asia, so I don't know how it's served there and what the indigenious folk think about it.

I do know I've had it in several restaurants and it bares no goddamn resemblance to the dry noodles you nuke with water and seasoning packet after you've shotgunned a case of Pabst and done a few bonghits. The best ramen I ever had was at Yakatori Denchan, which no longer exists. It was an Interzone sorta place, with Asian businessmen bellied up to the bar, swilling sake from square wooden vessels and eating beef tendon and chicken hearts dripping with Hoisin sauce. Dennis, the guy that ran the place and manned the grill, would crank late-era Pink Floyd (blech) while he browned sardine and clam and bacon-wrapped enoki. His wife, who resembled a Japanese geisha painting come alive, cooked up the noodles in the back.

YDC's ramen was a big bowl full of tangy broth and noodles and fish cakes and bean sprouts. I tried to replicate it this weekend and did OK. Pork stock with miso and chili oil. Noodles, thinly-sliced pork cooked in Hoisin and oyster sauce, fish cake, shrimp ball, bean sprouts, chili, scallions. Gilded the lilly with two quail egg, cracked straight into the steaming broth. And you don't have to be high to enjoy it.