05.15.08
NYC Ramen Roundup
I love ramen. Give me noodles in soup with a hobby kit of other ingredients and I’m a happy girl. Over the years, I’ve tried a lot of ramen places in New York. I am not Japanese, so I don’t know what’s traditional besides the information I’ve picked up over the years. I just know what I like. I’ve listed the places in order of how much I enjoy them from most to least. More will be added as I visit them.
Momofuku Noodle Bar, 171 1st Ave. & 10th/11th St., is outrageously tasty. It doesn’t claim to be authentic – chef David Chang has put his own touches on things, and what wonderful touches they are. The Momofuku ramen is a bit salty (not a bad thing, just an observation), and the pork ramen is cheaper but likewise demands to be completely finished. Both have nice big noodles and a good mix of vegetables. There are quite a few other choices in ramens. They also have several entrées and many interesting small dishes, such as sweetbreads, tripe, and the life-changing pork buns. I have low blood pressure so I can eat as much salt as I want, but you might want to be careful if you don’t. See full review of buns and chicken dinner as well.
basic ramen: $10; Momofuku ramen: $14; pork buns: priceless ($9)
Hakata Ippudo, 65 4th Ave. & 10th St., is the biggest and nicest-looking of all the ramen houses I’ve been to. They clearly put a lot of effort into decorating the place. It’s the first American outpost of a Japanese chain, and is by all accounts authentic. I got the Akomaru original with special sauce, which came with cabbage, thin round noodles, scallions, stewed fatty pork and wood-ear mushrooms. It was very good, but the broth was so fatty it had formed a thin skin in the interval between leaving the kitchen and arriving in front of me. After picking out all the mushrooms I quite enjoyed the rest. The shoyu, which was less fatty, was also well-done. I really liked the food – I doubt I can come here often, though, because the soup is just too fatty and it’s more expensive than all the other places except Momofuku and Soba-Ya.
akomaru: $13; shoyu: $12
Tsushima Wednesdays & Fridays, 141 E.47th St. & Lexington/3rd Aves., 212-207-1938. There is shio ramen plus rice with ikura on Wednesdays, starting at noon until they’ve served thirty bowls. It’s great and only $13.50 for all that. If you are very hungry even after the complimentary salad, you can have delicious shrimp shumai as well. See full review. On Fridays they have a miso ramen special too.
Shumai (no gyoza): $7
Ramen + rice deal: $13.50
Sapporo, 152 W.49th St. & 6th/7th Aves., has enormous bowls of many, many kinds of ramen. I tried the paco men, which comes with a crispy breaded pork cutlet on top of shoyu. It’s pretty good. They have a lot of other things too, but you can’t go wrong with a bowl bigger than your head full of noodly, soupy, meaty goodness for barely $10. Plus, if you’re starving, you can add half portions of rice dishes for $3.50!
gyoza: $5
ramen: $8-$10
Menchanko-Tei, 131 E.45th St #1 & Lexington/3rd, is quite good. It’s a pretty big place and is always full of Japanese businesspeople. I usually get the house specialty Menchanko ramen, with shrimp, chicken, egg, vegetables, tofu and some other yummy stuff. I find it tasty even before I add spice to it. The broth is a good level of saltiness and the ingredients are always fresh. The gyoza are delicious too.
gyoza: about $5
Menchanko: $8.95; shoyu: $7.75
Ramen Setagaya, 34-A St. Mark’s Place & 2nd Ave., has fallen off in quality. It’s pretty good, but now I have to add lots of spice and hotness. It’s good and cheap, gyoza are well-done. It was my favorite before the owner started playing musical chairs and changed all the restaurant names and stopped making the noodles awesome. *sniffle* I want my beloved 2008 Setagaya back.
whatever, it’s cheap: about $12 for ramen. They’ll probably change it again in a few months anyway.
Ramen Kuidouraku, 141 1st Ave. & 10th St. and 121 Ludlow & Delancey/Rivington Sts., used to be Setagaya, It was my favorite. I still like how the shoyu broth isn’t super fatty, but it is nowhere near as flavorful as it formerly was. Both branches have now added some new broth flavors; they’re ok. The gyoza, which come in vegetable, pork or seafood, are great good. The shio is also wonderful good. The pork bun is a pale echo of Momofuku‘s. The supposedly spicy Zutto champon isn’t much of a challenge. It does have a surprisingly generous amount of seafood.
gyoza: $4.50
original soy sauce (syo-yu) ramen: $10.50; shio $9.50
Rai Rai Ken, 214 E.10th St & 2nd/3rd Ave., is a very narrow lunch counter, except it looks as though it was carved out of one tree. The seats are tree stumps too. I like the texture of their slender noodles, but the broth of the shio tends to be a little bland, and I end up putting tons of hot oil, pepper and shichimi togerashi in it. I found the seafood ha-chan – fried rice with baby shrimps, scallops, egg and scallions – not very good. Once Setagaya opened I stopped coming here.
gyoza: $4.60
shio: $6.95Soba-Ya, 229 E.9th St. #3 & 2nd/3rd Aves., actually does not have ramen, but it is mainly noodles so I’m including it. I went in September 2008 and had the Kamo, soba with cooked duck and sautéed scallion in broth. I really liked the soba but the duck was weird and tough and just generally not good. I would definitely go back and have some other soba, which is better for you than normal noodles. I’m curious to see how good their nabeyaki (shrimp, chicken, lots of stuff) udon is as well. It is quite expensive for the neighborhood and compared to other noodle shops.
shumai (no gyoza): $8.50
plain soba/udon: $8.50
kamo (duck & scallion): $15
nabeyaki (lots of stuff, udon only): $16.50
Kambi Ramen House, 351 E.14th St. & 1st/2nd Aves., is from the Minca people. I don’t know why I thought it would be any better, but actually it kind of was. I got the sio with thin noodles in pork and chicken broth with char siu, half a brown egg and veggies. It was pretty decent; the noodles were chewy, but the broth wasn’t that flavorful until I added half a bottle of spice. There are many other choices and the décor is calming and lovely.
pork or shrimp gyoza: $4.85 or $5.75
sio: $9.50
Minca, 536 E.5th & Ave. A/B, I hated. I think the place itself is cute, and it’s nice to watch the cooks running around in that little space doing everything, but I found the food itself kind of bland. And the pork was so fatty I couldn’t eat it at all. I have nothing good to say about anything I put in my mouth there except the water. Good thing it was a cheap meal.
gyoza: $4.50
shoyu: $8.50
