Akahoshi, five times
It begins, for our intents, with the book and its corresponding Reddit thread. There is a guy, and he decided to beastmode ramen to such a degree that, well, book, thread. The book should be sold and it is not because he is generous. In the process, he got so popular on Reddit that he did what any normal person with a passionate food hobby would do, and opened a restaurant.
Akahoshi, now indisputably one of the best ramen bowls in Chicago, is located two blocks from another one of the best ramen shops in Chicago, in the same neighborhood as a completely different style of ramen shop that is also stunning. Unlike those places, though, Akahoshi is so popular that refreshing for a 4-top comprehensively defeated me for two months, until one day it didn’t. I sat in shock for a few minutes, then pinged friends to fill the other seats. “Wait, is this Ramen_Lord’s place? In,” one infamously overscheduled friend replied. Reddit knows. Heads know. Search knows, too: type “ramen recipe site:reddit.com”, and you will be put in front of the book rather quickly.
Akahoshi’s menu is slim by design, because everything they make is engineered within an inch of its life: 4 bowls that are always on the menu, 1 rotated out every month, and some beverages. Other ramen shops sell gyudon, soba, bento, but no, you are there for ramen. You know the guy. Nobody just casually walks into Akahoshi. It may be in the middle of a major neighborhood center on the northwest side, but it is truly located on the internet, it is of the internet, it is an act of teaching generosity dumped into the real world and put a half-block away from the Blue Line.
Akahoshi shows you what you get when you spend your life teaching others on the internet. You are eventually rewarded for it, shown a clearer way. This remains one of the purest dynamics of the information age. I see myself in all of this, marveling at the fact that the place exists at all, wondering what points of growth I’m missing in my own practice.