Ippudo – 01.14.2010

Ippudo
65 4 Avenue
New York, NY 10003

Once you taste real ramen, you will be craving it for life.  That craving is what we succumbed to this evening as we hunted down yet another NYC ramen joint.  The “joint” this evening turned out to be a hotspot as my ramen-loving Greek pal and I ventured through the doors, exiting the quiet NYU ‘hood and entering a raucous ramen room.

Despite us getting there late (10:30pm), we had to wait 15 minutes, on a midweek evening no less.  That allowed us to confirm that Kirin beat out Sapporo as the darft of choice that night.  Anyhow, we were led to our table amid a boisterous Japanese welcome with the host actually pulling out our seats for us.  This ramen house definitely wins best service.  The place is trendy; dimly lit with close seating perfect for a ramen-lovers date.  Nothing against the place, but I did not love it.  I prefer ramen houses to be hole in the wall and and less flashy.

Despite these misgivings, Ippudo has a hip vibe and more importantly, delicious ramen.  The menu describes the Ippudo Special Ramen Kasane-Aji:  Ramen noodle in layered “tori-paitan” creamy chicken and tonkotsu soup topped pork chashu, beansprouts, onion, 1/2 seasoned boiled egg, kikurage, scallions & yuzu.  As complicated, as it sounds it is indeed tasty, especially with the garlic oil drizzled on top.  The broth is very good: creamy, rich and with layers upon layers of flava.  The toppings are also very well done with perfectly cooked boiled egg (albeit cold yolk) and excellent chashu.  Fatty and salty and not at all dry as some broiled pork can be.  The noodles on the other hand were not to my liking.  Although perfectly cooked, they were straight like spaghetti not springy and coiled.

Good
The Ippudo Special Ramen
The rockstar service

Bad
Pricey for ramen
Darkness and loud conversations and crammed seating.

Ugly
You crave beer after ramen.  After beer you crave ramen.  Repeat.

Picture perfect pork buns

Ippudo Special Ramen

Oily goodness clsoeup

Cool bar with obligatory hipster bartender

Boston 2010

Boston mega-review

Annas Taqueria

Sound Bites

Barking Crab

Cafe Luna

Ah Boston, the big city with a plethora of bars but no food, or shall I say no food when you need it, say midnight.  Doesn’t late night drinking and late night binging go hand-in-hand?

Anyhow, there are gems in bean town; the easiest to find and most consistent being Anna’s Taqueria.  It is the burrito from this simple mexican shop that I miss the most every time I leave Boston.  Cheap, quick, and TASTY.  Not secret-guilty-pleasure-taco-bell tasty but mexi-cali tasty.  Yes, Anna’s delivers with authentic taste without any commercial compromise.  The chicken and al pastor burrito are rockin’ as well as the guac’.  They even fearlessly offer lengua as a filling.  Filling food that costs just pesos.  Anna, te amo.

Chips and guacamole

Grilled chicken taco (left) and taco al pastor (right)

A restaurant with a line out the door is one of two things:  over-hyped or truly worth it.  If the restaurant is a breakfast/brunch shop, then it is definitely the latter.  Sound bites patrons were anxiously waiting to get in the door because of hunger and also because of the chilly morning.  Still it did not deter us nor those standing in line.  I have to give Sound Bites a second chance and try them again.  It has a great vibe, efficient albeit rushed staff, and great food.  It is this last point I am confident is true even though my breakfast that morning was below average.  On a recommendation by corned beef connoisseur Kevin, I ordered the poached eggs over corned beef and toast.  Unfortunately, it tasted like camp fire corned beef out of can.  The food did not reflect the quality of everything else in the restaurant and they must have ran out of the good stuff.  Someone in the kitchen made the bonehead decision to substitute with the easily identifiable canned counterfeit.  Insider tip:  if you find yourself waiting in line in the cold, go inside and grab a hot drink from the self service beverage station to help your wait in the cold line.

Tasty challah french toast

Close-up of faux corned beef hash at Sound Bites

The lowly crab dwells on the dark seafloor and looks rather dangerous to eat.  The Barking Crab restaurant is also difficult to find and from the outside looks like a rundown shack.  However, the inside is warm and has a fun sea shanty-like decor reminiscent of a Spongebob episode.  Seafood allergists beware, the scent of shellfish hangs heavy in the air when you enter.  We ordered fried calamari, steamed mussels and the 4lb. mixed crab bowl.  No small amount even for 4 hungry eaters.  Overall the crab was good but not great, with the standout being the snow crab.  We were in New England; we should have ordered lobster.  What were we thinking?

Like celebrating Christmas in a tug boat

Mixed crab platter looks like a crab when served

Have a brunch date?  Then bring your gal-pal to Cafe Luna.  The food will unfortunately not impress but this breakfast/lunch spot is quaint and nicely decorated.  The space is small which will force a more personable expereince for you and said date, for better or worse.  Unbeknownst to me, my buddy brought me here on a man-date but I did not protest.  Eatclub requires, at times, sacrifice.  I ordered an omelette and blueberry pancakes, standard stuff but I was disappointed.  The omelette order was wrong and the pancakes were merely plain pancakes with a blueberry topping.  I didn’t have the heart to complain as I was starving and did not want to see food go wasted, even if it’s overly salty.  My friend ordered eggs benedict with corned beef which looked and tasted very delicious.  Clearly I ordered wrong but I was having bad luck with Boston corned beef and but a breakfast joint with bad pancakes?  omelettes?  The only way I would come back would be if it was another date, just not a man-date.

Brunch at Cafe Luna

At least Boston has good beer…

Paul’s Da Burger Joint – 12.30.2009

Paul’s Da Burger Joint
131 2nd Avenue
New York, NY

I had the Eastsider burger with ham, cheese, bacon, onion, mushroom, tomato and onion.  Nice and oily and the ham is a nice addition to the burger.  Everyone who ate it seemed to like it.  A top 10 burger joint imho but not top 3.  A real good burger; I would need to be able to eat medium rare and of high quality meat.  Even though i ordered it medium rare, it was cooked medium well.  Nice decor with checkered table cloth and a funny waitress.

- Paul, Chief Flava Officer