Ed H.
Yelp
Well located and popular local ramen place near the Capital Square. I was excited to try Morris Ramen after seeing it mentioned on blogs as a top Madison Ramen spot. Unfortunately I was thoroughly dissappointed with Morris Ramen.
We came early on a winter Saturday night. The Lady put our name in and was told there was a 30-45 minute wait. Fine, they're busy so we will wait. Towards the front of the restaurant there is a large table (that was open and not in use when we checked in - or for the whole time we were there) and a fairly open area. So the Lady was waiting there, but was told that that space was neeed for large parties and that she and the rest of our small group needed to wait outside. Awkward. So we are just supposed to wait outside in the cold so that this area can be kept open (which no one showed up to use for the entire time we were there) - okay... After 15 or 20 minutes I went to ask how the wait was now looking and I was told rather matter of factly that the original quoted 30-45 minute wait still applied. (Despite we were now 15-20 minutes later, and with no empathy. Ok...) Anyways eventually we were called to be seated.
So we order and wanted to start with the pork buns and then I wanted to have the Morris Ramen and also ordered their Hibiscus leamonade. So we order and then I'm told that they need a credit card now at time of ordering to run a tab. Wait what? I guess maybe they've had some dine and dashers, but omg this is tacky. I've never had this before where I'm required to open a tab to place an order at a sit down restaurant.
So the pork buns appear. (By the way they are $7 a piece, usually they come two to an order but the order here is for one bun.) The bun looks like a regular steamed pork bun but its larger than normal. I don't need a whole sammich, its an appetizer. Then biting into the bun, the pork is not the regular large chunks of chashu pork, instead it's small bits, similar to bits of pulled pork. What? Then the sauce is also not similar to other pork bun barbeque type sauces I've had. It seriously tasted like some kind of regular barbecue sauce out of a bottle and not a pork bun type sauce which is usually a little tangy, and sometimes with some mayo. And usually there is some type of lettuce or similar in the bun, this had pickles. The pickles are non traditional but I didn't mind them. The weird non-chashu pulled pork with jar barbeque sauce I did mind and was simply not good. So not a winner.
So the Morris Ramen appears. They don't call it this, but essentially this must be their take on a Tonkotsu Ramen. I judge Ramen by the components: broth, noodles, toppings, Chashu - as well as how these all come together. The broth is a thin dingy yellow / brown colored broth with a kind of off weird taste. Definitely not a deep tonkotsu type broth. And there was a weird film on top of the broth, I've never ever seen this in a bowl of Ramen, and found it unsettling. Likely this bowl of Ramen was made and then sat in the kitchen and grease in the broth congealed into this film. Gross. Also I looked at the kitchen and did not see a large pot with pork bones boiling to make a broth like some ramen places would. The noodles were actually alright but I'm guessing they buy these premade in bulk as I didn't see any noodle machinery back in the kitchen. The toppings were quite stingy for this type of Ramen, just bamboo shoots, some scallions and only half a soft boiled egg. No Nori, no mushrooms, no corn, no sprouts, no fish cake - all of which are common in this style of Ramen. Onto the Chashu which should be the star of the show. So there were two pieces of Chashu in the Ramen. They weren't braised as better places do. Most problematically the Chashu was about 90% fat. There was a thin strip, maybe about a 1/4" of meat along the side and the vast majority of the chunk of Chashu was fat, gross. And with no braising, the Chashu part that was actually meat didn't have much flavor. Overall the only things to enjoy in this bowl were the noodles and half an egg. So for $18 I got a pretty objectively bad bowl of Ramen. This is probably the worst bowl of Ramen I've had in a long time. It's notable that this is the namesake item on their menu, the "Morris Ramen".
So... a very disappointing and somewhat unpleasant outing at Morris Ramen. The service was not at all welcoming and was indifferent at best with some weird practices. The only person who asked how we were doing was the pony tail guy who asked on our way out. The food was completely substandard, ridiculously bad for the prices charged. This place needs a complete overhaul of all aspects of both food and service or it will sink to irrelevance. I'm surprised its as popular as it is given what they are putting out but I guess their location, lack of competition and maybe past memories have overcome their shortfalls so far. No need to go back here. Cannot recommend.