Boke Bowl's Beef Curry is a pungent excursion...

 

If you have been to Boke Bowl lately, you know they have gotten rid of their seasonal Duck Ramen (sadness galore) and switched it with something new. Beef Curry is at the bottom of their wooden-slate menu these days, and it seems that the chefs behind the invisible curtain were cranking it out like hot cakes...Or ramen. The mood is obviously intoxicating. Boke succeeds in sucking me in from the rain EVERY TIME to enjoy a bowl, not only because the quality is dynamite, because the hard work that goes into their creative bowls is something to behold on it's own. I order some buns and the Beef Curry Ramen, then sit and watch the masters at work...

 

The bowl comes out and there is a lot going on. My noodles (pan fried a bit from what I can tell) rest below and litany of toppings and deep brown broth, covered again with small-cut peppers and micro-greens. As an add on, I place both an egg AND a hunk of buttermilk fried chicken onto the top of this beast and take in the smooth aroma of....of.... of manure? What am I smelling here? I want to come up with a positive way to spin this one but honestly, this bowl's smell is a tad foul. Mixing up the ramen, I take my first slurp and the salty noodles distract my brain for a moment but there is still a burning back end of musk to this bowl. I ask my guests if I am crazy and they smell it too.

Suddenly a lightbulb goes off above my head, as I am drenching the beef in the shiny broth...
FISH SAUCE.



I've cooked with it plenty of times before. Just enough, and your dish's flavor factor becomes seductively primal; too much and the whole thing smells like feces. It is a delicate balance which unfortunately tipped the scales this time at Boke. Swirling around the delightful brussels, yams, and green onion bits, I bite the bullet and keep eating for review's sake. The bowl itself is really well executed, the semi-fried noodles are heavy and sopping--the veggies are fresh and accent the broth's BASE very well--even the meat, which I found to be cut WAY too thick, was as delicious as "Mom's famous beef brisket". The downfall of the bowl truly was it's musky, unpleasant aroma which rendered this bowl somewhat of a chore to finish. Also, going back to the title of this bowl: "Curry", we find hardly a hint of curry flavor throughout. Realizing Japanese Curries are blander than what westerners are used to from the East, I let this go initially, only to be more wanton of a flavor aside from fish sauce, salt, and soy in the bowl. The curry I was expecting (completely in error) never really showed up in this Ramen, and for that I was a bit disappointed. I thought, if a place like "Double Dragon", which is primarily a bar, can make a great Curry Ramen, why wasn't Boke Bowl able to? It could be because of Boke's proclivity to over-create at times when simplicity may just be the key. This bowl may have not needed any fish sauce at all, yet it was just marinated in the stuff.

I truly wish that Boke would have not switched their Duck out for the Beef Ramen. While the bowl LOOKS absolutely stunning, the reality is that this heavy Ramen stew is rife with small "over-did-it's" like the overabundance of fatty American style brisket, the gnarly smelling broth and a price tag of $15.00.

Rating
Broth: 3/10
Noodles: 7/10
Meat: 6/10
Veggies: 9/10