Nightlife: Yume Wo Katare

According to Yume Wo Katare, it serves twice as many noodles as other ramen shops. Photos by Alexandra Wimley (COM’17)

Japanese ramen is popular for its hearty broth, chewy noodles, and delicious toppings. But can it help you achieve your dreams?

Tsuyoshi Nishioka thinks so. He’s the owner and chef behind Yume Wo Katare, the tiny ramen shop that opened in Cambridge’s Porter Square in 2012. The restaurant’s philosophy: ramen is a path to realizing your dreams—if you can finish the huge bowl of ramen served there, you can do anything you set your mind to. Judging by the restaurant’s long lines, Nishioka is not the only one buying into the idea.

The restaurant’s name means “tell your dream,” and customers are encouraged to do that after finishing their ramen. Yes, it’s an interactive experience, and no, not everyone is brave enough to share a dream with a roomful of strangers. Have trouble articulating your dreams or want to learn more? Attend workshops, led by Chef Nishioka every Monday night, when the restaurant is closed for dining, to help identify and realize your dreams.

Those too shy to express their dreams still have plenty of reason to stop by: jiro-style ramen (hard to find in the United States), known for its rich, gravy-like tonkotsu (pork bone) and shoyu (soy sauce) broth topped with bean sprouts, cabbage, and garlic, and its fatty slices of pork, is served. Nishioka perfected his jiro ramen at his five ramen shops in Japan, which he sold to open a ramen shop in the United States. He arrived knowing no English, but Yume Wo Katare was a hit from the beginning, not just with the area’s Japanese community, but with all ramen lovers.

We visited on a Friday night, and despite the 28 degrees outside, there was a long line (our wait was about 30 minutes). Expect to wait whatever the time of year. Nishioka believes waiting heightens the experience. The host came out to ask how many in each party, and told us the pork bones were really fresh so tonight’s broth was particularly good, making our mouths water.

There’s no lingering at Yume Wo Katare: it was time to order before we even sat down. Until recently, there were only two main options: ramen with two pieces of pork ($12) and buta ramen, with five pieces ($14). After choosing, you decide on the small or the regular (same price). But take note: portions are large, and you’re likely to leave very full regardless of the portion (extra noodles are $1 and extra pork fat is free).

You discover what sets this shop apart when you open the menu: at the top it says, “Talk about your dream ($0).” We said yes when asked if we wanted to share a dream at the end of the meal and were handed a small placard to write down one short-term and one long-term dream. The placard, with a drawing of the shop’s superhero pig mascot Buta ramen (buta means pig in Japanese), reads, “I have a dream!”

We ordered two small ramens and snagged the only open seats, at a communal table. With a seat at the bar, you can watch Chef Nishioka work his magic, stirring enormous pots of broth and noodles like a wizard over his cauldron. That said, there is plenty to marvel at from any seat: on the walls are a large papier-mâché elephant head, hand-drawn comics of Buta ramen trying his darnedest to finish a bowl of ramen, and framed dreams written by customers, many in Japanese. You can have your own dream framed in the restaurant—for $10, it can be up there for a month, for $10,000, up to 10 years.

A few minutes after we sat, we were served a steaming mountain of cabbage, bean sprouts, fresh minced garlic, abura (pork fat), big chunks of pork, house-made noodles, and broth. The rich, meaty broth warmed our frozen bodies from the inside out. The chewy noodles and crunchy vegetables provided texture, and the tender pork was packed with flavor. We ate until we were absolutely stuffed.

Meal done, it was time for those willing to tell their dreams. The host stopped the music and pulled out a clicker to keep track of the number told. This perplexed and amused us. He told us later that the restaurant is collecting dreams for a Guinness World Record. According to a sign near the cash register, they have 879 of the 10,000 dreams they hope to gather.

The other four people at our table were the only customers besides us brave enough to tell their dreams. One woman said her long-term dream was to live to 103 so she could see three different centuries, and her short-term dream was to be able to do a pull-up. An electrical engineer’s dreams: learning a fun dance to do with his girlfriend (short-term) and writing an iPhone app to help color-blind electrical engineers determine the color-based value of a resistor (long-term).

We nervously stood when our turn came. My dinner companion’s: learn how to operate a drone (short-term) and become a professional photojournalist (long-term). I announced that mine were to learn how to fry tofu perfectly (short-term) and become a journalist for a cool, arty magazine (long-term).

“Can we hang out?” the host jokingly asked my friend after she shared her drone dream.

The final event of the night was the customary judging of customers’ ramen-eating capacities. Each is given a verbal rating based on ability to finish the food. When the host examined my dinner companion’s impressively empty bowl, she yelled, “Everyone…she got a perfect!” This elicited cheers from around the restaurant.

I still had broth and noodles in my bowl and received a slightly embarrassing “almost.” I left Yume Wo Katare with a new short-term dream: to finish an entire bowl of ramen the next time so I can earn that coveted “perfect.”

Yume Wo Katare, 1923 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, is cash only; hours vary—find the monthly schedule here, call 617-714-4008, or send a Facebook message; closed Sundays. The restaurant is closed Monday nights, but classes on telling your dreams are held from 7 to 9 p.m. Take an MBTA Green Line trolley inbound to Park Street and transfer to the Red Line outbound to Porter.

This is part of a weekly series featuring Boston nightlife venues of interest to the BU community. If you have any suggestions for places we should feature, leave them in the Comment section below.

Kylie Obermeier can be reached at kylieko@bu.edu; follow her on Twitter at @kylikobermeier.