A bone broth worth biking for

The Lansing River Trail, one of the city’s best features, offers an incredible blend of practicality and beauty; it allows me to bike to useful places while truly enjoying the journey. Case in point: Thanks to the extension past Shaw Lane, I can now ride my bike through a cavern of emerald canopies all the way to one of my favorite restaurants in the area, East Lansing’s Uni Sushi and Ramen.

Uni has a lot of tasty options to offer, such as the yellowtail sashimi appetizer, served with ponzu sauce and slices of jalapeño. However, the reason I like Uni so much is almost exclusively because of its black garlic ramen. It’s made with tonkotsu, a bone broth made from pork and chicken that’s utterly unparalleled by your average bone broth, thanks to a lot of additional boiling time. The extra boiling dissolves marrow, fats and minerals from the bones in addition to the usual collagen, and the action of the boil emulsifies it all, so rather than being clear and watery, it has a creamy texture, opaque color and richness of flavor that leaves any other bone broth I’ve ever tried in the dust.

Ramen noodles are bathed in this most succulent broth, lending their alkaline taste and supernally chewy texture to the meal. Next, toppings are added, such as spicy, earthy scallions; effervescent black garlic oil; chewy black mushrooms; and slices of slightly sweet, braised pork belly. Bean sprouts add a crunch and a barely bitter palate refresher, which makes the fish cake and menma (fermented bamboo shoots) even more flavorful.

I like to add gyoza on top, and there’s an egg in there, too — a seasoned, soft-boiled egg called nitamago, which I like to save for last. When the solid ingredients are all gone, I raise the bowl to my lips to retrieve every drop of tonkotsu I can.

At this point in the meal, my mind is usually floating somewhere between clouds nine and 20, which is the perfect mood for the bike ride back home. I find that a bit of exercise both whets my appetite and helps to satiate it. So, when I have a craving for ramen, Uni not only has my favorite broth in the city (and noodles and toppings to match), but it’s the perfect distance away to ensure every dinner there is a meal I’m truly hungry for.