Boxer Ramen

By Aaron Mesh

2032 NE Alberta St., 946-1619; 1025 SW Stark St., 894-8260; boxerramen.com. Lunch and dinner daily.

Alberta Street and 21st Avenue is the Times Square of Micah Camden's fast-food mini-empire, with the entire side of a building painted with the Little Big Burger menu (now sold to Hooters). In this setting, the latest outpost of Boxer Ramen seems nearly subtle, even though Camden has spray-painted an alley in gold and decorated the walls with drawings of animal-people eating bowls of animal-people, like an anime episode of BoJack Horseman. The puzzling part of a high-gloss take on the Tokyo ramen counter is that it closes at 9 pm. The starter menu, including pot stickers with pickles ($5) and "okonomiyaki tots"—$6 totchos with spicy mayonnaise and trembling bonito flakes—would be impossibly popular at last call. The ramen bowls, with a shiitake shoyu ($11) being the most balanced, are nighthawk comfort with a poached egg on top. Camden's little big touches remain deft, even as he makes Portland look increasingly like a cartoon.

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