First Take: Menya Noodle Bar

Well, it's here-- Belmar's first ramen joint, Menya.

I've spent a good portion of my adult life looking for a really good bowl of ramen. For a couple of years in my twenties, I roamed the streets of Pusan, South Korea, looking for spicy ramen with lots of kimchi. This was street ramen, served up in thin metal bowls outside the university gates, cheap and filling.

Later I got to try the ramen in Japan, where the dish has a more subtle broth and the noodles are garnished with colorful vegetables topped with pork belly. The best was at a little noodle shop in Nagasaki, whose name I couldn't even read, where the bowls were slurped by lunchtime patrons seated at creaky wooden stools in front of a long, linoleum counter.

And can I talk about all the great ramen in Hawaii? I've gotten to eat at high-end concept ramen joints like Lucky Belly and local favorites like Kiwami Ramen.

So when I moved back to Denver, it was only natural that I started looking for ramen here, too. For years, the only place I liked was Oshima Ramen, the Denver franchise of the Japanese chain founded by Keiji Oshima, and dedicated (according to the sign when you walked in) to the "God of Ramen."

These days, with so many ramen places to choose from, I have two favorites: Ototo on S. Pearl Street in Denver, and Miyako Ra-men Spot on S. Broadway in Englewood. Ototo, owned by the same folks who run the infinitely glorious Sushi Den, serves up some of the best spicy ramen I've ever eaten. It's house-made, with a fatty, almost creamy broth that's positively decadent. Miyako's broth is almost as rich, but they get the spicy part down perfectly. Their heat reminds me of the ramen I used to get in Korea.

All of which brings me to Menya, downtown Lakewood's new ramen shop. And the truth is, I'm extremely hesitant to review it, having only been there once.

When I went in recently, I ordered a bowl of their house ramen, and found the broth rich and the pork belly as meltable as butter. Impressively, my bowl had a perfectly soft-boiled egg (many ramen shops mess this up) that was a delight to cut into. The only thing I didn't much like was the use of raw baby spinach as a garnish-- it was just too taken-out-of-the-plastic-bag for me. I'd have loved to see it wilted with a little sesame oil, or else replaced with something like bok choy. But honestly, I'm not an expert on regular ramen. What I like is Korean-influenced spicy ramen. And even then, I'm hardly an expert. All I know is what I like.

Menya has spicy ramen on the menu, but I was little surprised to see that it was a spicy chicken ramen, which is something I've never seen before. It was so surprising that I decided to hold off trying it until my next visit. Which means I'm going to hold off on any judgements until I've had a chance to try their take on spicy.

Meanwhile, I was recently downtown and passed by Menya's 16th Street Mall location, and it was packed at noon, so there's apparently a large group of people for whom Menya hits the spot.

Will Menya Belmar end up on my list of regular downtown Lakewood lunchtime spots? Time will tell, but it's a promising start.

Yes, Belmar Plaza is Looking Rough Around the Edges. It's Time for a Remodel.

It's been 14 year since the Villa Italia mall was redeveloped into the mixed use, new urbanist Belmar. In that time, the retail portion of Belmar has seen several owners-- first Continuum, then the Southern Ute tribe, and now Starwood Capital. Other parts of the development are owned by various HOAs, and still others by the Plaza Metropolitan District, a Business Improvement District.

I don't know which of these entities is responsible for the upkeep of Belmar's main plaza, but after 14 years, it's clear that the area needs more than daily cleaning. It's time for some serious maintenance, and probably a remodel.

Belmar's dry and broken fountain.

Let's start with the the main fountain, which hasn't been turned on in years. At one time, there was a large round stone ball that turned as water flowed round it, but it cracked and was later removed. The shallow step design of the fountain encouraged children to play on it, which led to the installation of a  "Warning: No Entry" sign. Compare this with Founders Fountain, the water feature in Stapleton's main plaza. Designed with a wading feature that was meant for children, it was installed in 2003 and is still up and running today. In contrast, Belmar's defunct fountain has become an unwelcoming eyesore.

Next up are the paving stones. They give the plaza it's old world charm, but the stones along Bonfils Lane (i.e. the south side of the plaza that runs between the movie theater and the steps leading up to Whole Foods) have shifted and buckled. In some areas the stones have become a tripping hazard. The ground in this area needs to be re-graded and the stones relaid so that they are flat.

Buckled paving stones on the south side of Belmar Plaza.

Finally, there's the dead tree on the plaza that should have been removed and replanted but which was instead turned into a grotesque sculpture of happy bears, birds, and rabbits. Clearly someone thought this was a good idea, but let me make it absolutely clear: it wasn't. It was a terrible idea. Carvings of happy woodland animals belong in tourist trap towns in the mountains, or the yards of ramshackle homes with lace curtains, uncut grass, and a jeep or two up on blocks in the driveway. Belmar's aesthetic is modern, not rustic. Yes, whoever had the horrible idea to carve up this tree should feel deep, deep shame.

Of course, maybe deep shame is your aesthetic. If so, let me make a different argument, one from a design standpoint. The trees that line the south end of the plaza are there to mark a through-zone (the aforementioned Bonfils Lane) that connects the east and west sides of Belmar. The uniformity of these trees creates this through-zone. In other words, it's important to the function of the plaza that there be a row of trees along its south side. By turning one of these trees into a kitsch piece of mountain-art, the entire design of the plaza has been thrown off-kilter. 

Art? No, this is the mutilated
corpse of an innocent tree. 

So we come back to the fact that's it unclear who's making decisions about the Belmar Plaza. Clearly it's not someone with any professional expertise in design. It's probably someone who's just muddling along on a limited budget, and who doesn't have any clear sense that one of Belmar's most important spaces is falling apart. 

Belmar's main plaza needs the attention of a landscape architect, and it needs it now. Unfortunately, I don't even know who's responsible for keeping up the plaza area, or if that entity even cares that things are starting to fall apart.