Spicy Tequila Ramen

The subject of this painting makes me extremely irritated.

Not because I don’t love it, but because it was the best ramen I’ve ever eaten in my entire life, and I’ll probably never get to eat it again.

This bowl belonged to Food Gallery 32 in Koreatown, Manhattan, one of my favorite places on earth. One night my boyfriend and I stopped in while wandering K-Town and decided to split a bowl of ramen because we were both only feeling a little peckish.

We were not prepared for how good it would be.

The dish was called Spicy Tequila Ramen, and it came with a small pile of limes, five or six of them, to squeeze into the broth. The spice level made it feel like you might actually die, but somehow it only made you want another bite. It was the kind of food that stops a conversation mid sentence because you are too busy processing how good it is.

For the next few months we kept saying the same thing. We have to go back to Koreatown just to get that ramen again.

But by the time we planned to return, it was summer. Sweating through a bowl of spicy ramen in the middle of a humid New York summer didn’t sound quite as appealing, so we waited until the weather cooled down.

When we finally went back, the restaurant was gone.

So this painting became a small memorial to the best ramen I’ve ever had, and the bowl I will probably spend the rest of my life thinking about.