Restaurant Preview: The Mercantile
Know something we don't?
A bit of advice to those who attempt Orochon Ramen's debilitatingly spicy "Special #2" ramen bowl: Don't let the "Wall of Bravery" trick you. The successful diners look nonchalant in photographs, inscribing boasts like "I have spice in my blood!" and "More noodles, please."
Do not listen to them. They are lying. The Special #2 bowl is the ramen equivalent of Barbara Stanwyck in "Double Indemnity:" Its lusty flavors seduce you before leaving you for dead on a bathroom floor in Little Tokyo.
Orochon's 3-year-old Special #2 contest is a simple proposition. Finish your bowl (half the size of a basketball) in under 30 minutes, and you join the survivors on their dining room wall for perpetuity. Three or so people a day ignore the warning to "eat at your own risk," and about half succeed in finishing it. There are other delicious and less spicy bowls on the menu, but for sinus-cleaning, sweat-staining, honey-can-you-sleep-outside-tonight heat, Special #2 is the witch goddess of Orochon.
Special #2 is not soy-sauce brown or miso gold like the other ramen bowls. It's blood red from 10 scoops of chile powder and jalapeño slices. Upon first bite, it's unexpectedly tasty, and full of mushrooms and hearty noodles that mute its potency.
Then you're left with the question of how to finish the broth. The only reasonable way: lift the bowl and chug. Doing so is the culinary equivalent of walking up to a riot cop and begging for a full-face macing. Your eyes go blurry and you begin to double over from the sheer volume of it. Twenty minutes in, the problem becomes less about the spiciness on your lips than the roiling evil inside you. And there's still half a bowl to drink.
Special #2 got the best of this reporter, and caused him to miss several deadlines while sucking on ice cubes and eating crackers to dull the burn. But like an ex-lover, over time the memories of Special #2 grow less painful, possibly even enticing. Someday, I'll ask for more noodles, please. But that day is not today.
-- August Brown
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Very good ramen. Ordered extra pork and eggs and so worth it. But be careful, I found myself wanting more and fishing for more content, but half an hour later I realized how full I really was.
(3)
SooOoo.... I really do not know what the hype about this spot is about.... I mean I've had better Japanese ramen (Like @ Shin Sen Gumi or that one popular...
best ramen ive ever had hands down kinda a cheap a but run down atmosphere, food came out pretty quick, finding parking was terrible, service was a bit...
Definitely worth checking out. They do one thing and thats make ramen. But if the line is too long I would highly suggest Chin Ma Ya right below Orochon,...
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