
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












