Midnight Ramen Pop-Up - Bishop Arts District

Saturday night after the art show, I went to a pretty cool event in Oak Cliff. It was a midnight ramen pop-up at Ten Bells Tavern, held by chef Justin Holt... previously of Lucia in Bishop Arts District, and now moving to Driftwood. Both great restaurants from what I've heard. I've been to Driftwood but yet have had the pleasure of dining at Lucia. 

This was a one night only, starts at midnight, first come first serve deal. $5 for a cup of homemade ramen, cash only. He actually did a couple of these in the past, which I never got the chance to go, so since I was in the area already, I HAD to check it out!! And shout-out to CraveDFW for letting me know about the event! :) 

Good ramen is hard to come by in Dallas. I have no idea why!! So this is totally caught my interest. We left the art show and parked ourselves inside Ten Bells Tavern around 10:30pm to hang out. There was no line yet, so we are sure to get some!! I was so anxious and excited, I've never been to one of these things before! 

Around 11:15pm or so we see a girl with a $5 bill in her hand go stand by the kitchen door. That's my cue! The line has started. We immediately got up and stood next to her. Other people quickly saw us and lined up as well. Everyone was chatting and energetic while waiting. It was so much fun to be around all these people that came for the ramen. :) My fellow foodies. We even made a couple of friends! 

We're getting all hyped up and talking about how many bowls we're going to get, what's going to be in it, IF we can get more than one per person, etc... Finally around 12:15am they started taking orders. YAY!! So my bf and I had a $20 so we got 4 orders. The noodles were served in a styrofoam cup and wasn't very big. They smelled amazing!! We got ours pretty quickly and sat down to eat. I didn't even take the time to look at the other people in line but they were probably staring at us with jealousy. hahaha. 

The noodles came in a white broth, with half a marinated egg, pork belly, fish cake, and I'm pretty sure I got a bamboo shoot in mine. 

First of all, there was so much pork belly and it was fantabulous!!!!! Super moist with the perfect layer of fat and crispy skin on top. It's probably one of the best pork bellies I've had in ramen in a longggg time! And he wasn't shy with the portions which was even more awesome. That alone was worth the $5 for me. 

However, the rest of the bowl was just ok. The noodles were thicker than your typical ramen noodles and they were a little overcooked. I love chewy ramen noodles and this was not it. Although I can cut him some slack as the noodles probably got softer as they sat in the broth while the kitchen cranked out 20, 30, or 50 bowls at a time. It wasn't the most efficient operation or biggest venue. So you had to just deal with what you got. 

The egg was cooked really well with a nice soft yolk but it was sooo salty. The broth was too salty as well. By the time I finished all the stuff, I couldn't drink the broth because it was too salty. My friends all pretty much felt the same way as me. Great pork belly, not enough noodles and too soft, and too salty. Regardless, I still had a great time and I'd go to another ramen pop-up in a heartbeat! 

Quality of Food:

Service: n/a 
Ambiance: n/a 
Value:

Overall Experience:

~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~