Japanese – Page 4 – Writing With My Mouth Full

All You Can Eat Sushi for $20 at Sushiya

Second floor, Whole Foods Market
95 East Houston Street corner of Bowery
$20 all you can eat sushi, without tip
♥

I didn’t expect high quality sushi when I saw the sign for all you can eat sushi for $20 at Whole Foods on Bowery, but I was curious enough to pull two co-workers with me to try out Sushiya’s latest promotion. We dodged the long lines at street level and propped ourselves up the bar stools in front of the conveyor belt sushi bar. At Sushiya, what you see is what you get, and we got a lot of rice.

There were some tuna, eel and salmon; some roe and a torn piece of arugula on a maki; crab and shrimp on spiced onigiris; seaweed salad, edamame and the out-of-place Vietnamese summer rolls. The makis came more often than the sushis, though the servers behind the bar quickly made them whenever we requested. We had the bar to ourselves when we visited and yet they always replaced the plates at the other end of the belt–perhaps to try and slow us down from eating all their inventory. In the end, we counted about thirty empty plates which is about 20 pieces per person for a total of $60. Oh, I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

All in all, $20 is pricey for lunch even around the East Village and SoHo, but it’s quite fun to wait for the colorful plates to come your way and pick sushi, makis and onigiris from the magnetic conveyor belt.

Momofuku Ko

163 First Avenue off 10th Street
https://reservations.momofuku.com/
about $300 for two, with beverage pairings, without tip
♥ ♥ ♥

I was so busy at work last week that I didn’t even have time to be excited about our upcoming reservations at Ko. When Cameron told me she wanted to take me out to thank me for showing her the Philippines last month, I thought, You’re welcome; don’t be silly. But when I received an email from her a couple of weeks later with our Ko confirmation attached, I squealed, Noooooo.

I gave up trying to get a reservation the first time I actually saw a green check mark on their Web site. As soon as I clicked it, I waited nervously for the page to refresh, and then, Sorry, that spot was just taken. It’s like waiting for your lottery numbers to show up on TV: the ball rolls out and you think it’s one of your picks; only it’s a 6 and not a 9 when it finally stops spinning. Momofuku Ko is the first restaurant I know of that uses only a Web site to take reservations and I suppose it’s a good way to keep the die-hard David Chang fans excited. All of us need someone who is willing to click their mouse off once in a while.

At 6:15 sharp, we were seated in the middle of the bar with a couple to our left and a group of four at the other end. The other seats were waiting for the 6:30pm guests–stacking them up this way is their version of turning tables over efficiently. By the time we were eating our fourth course, a newly arrived couple to our right was pouring over the wine list. The night’s pace was swift; our matching wines, beer and sake kept coming until the first of two desserts. I felt like I had to keep drinking to have no more than two glasses on my table. Although I played catch up with my drinks, I kept up with all eleven courses, including the bouches. The portions weren’t French Laundry nor Blue Hill sizes. I wasn’t comatose at the end of our two-hour meal. Perhaps a little tipsy, but quite happy and content. Here’s a rundown:

1. A delicately small toasted English muffin with pork fat and chives
2. A Ssam tribute of pig’s head torchon with mustard

One of the first two came with a light and crunchy chicharron and Japanese salt.

3. Fluke sashimi in buttermilk (!) with Sriracha hot sauce and yuzu paste covered in poppy seeds
4. Matsutake mushrooms in hot broth of bacon and dashi, a dish that reminded me of Tojo’s sable fish soup in Vancouver.
5. A beautifully smoked soft-boiled egg with onion sous-vide and caviar served with potato chips
6. An out of place corn-filled ravioli with Cotija Mexican cheese; I liked it more than I expected.
7. Maine halibut in pepperoncini purée and burnt onions with finely-chopped kohlrabi and radish in basil oil
8. Lychee with Riesling gelée and pine nuts and then covered in grated foie gras. Grated. Foie. Gras. This dish blew me away and I couldn’t stop talking about it. Everything melded in my mouth like Dippin’ Dots, only more luxurious and decadent than anything I’ve had this year. “Son of a peach” indeed.
9. Perfectly, perfectly cooked duck–the surly Asian man behind the counter (who wasn’t David Chang) had skills–with Chinese long beans, chestnuts and bean sprouts in cherry sauce.
10. Lychee sorbet in sesame “sand”; my quotes but perhaps a Thomas Keller-influenced naming convention
11. Strawberry and peanut butter halva with a sickeningly sweet yellow cake ice cream. I told you, I don’t like sweets.

David Chang is so lucky to be the name on almost every foodie’s tongue today: five years in the east Village and he’s still making waves. Ko is obviously his and his staff’s playground and you can feel that they’re cooking for themselves and serving what they want because they know people will follow. I can’t help but feel proud that this Asian American is at the top of his career right now. How I wish all talented and deserving chefs out there get the same chance to cook and perform the Momofuku way.

Ippudo

65 Fourth Avenue between 9th and 10th Streets
212/388.0088
about $40 for two, with drinks, with tip
♥ ♥

Shigemi Kawahara became Japan’s Ramen King after winning three consecutive years in a TV program against other ramen chefs. After twenty years in business, people still line up outside his Ippudo branches in Japan. This East Village store is his first foray overseas. The pandemonium has now reached New York City and the wait for a table to eat ramen is already two hours long. Alas, Ippudo’s reputation precedes itself.

We put our names down around 7pm and bought a few drinks around the East Village before heading back to see if the maitre d’ was any closer to calling out our names from her book. Two more Sapporo and Kirin drafts later and we were finally seated in front of the beautiful sequin piece in the back (next to chef Pichet Ong, no less). I immediately noticed the heavy wood interior when we walked in. Everything inside Ippudo looks expensive. I realized I’ve seen this kind of design before (Wagamama in London and Momofuku a few blocks away), but Ippudo presents itself quietly and with grace. Don’t expect loud music inside; there’s a buzz but it doesn’t get as loud as David Chang’s Noodle Bar. During opening week, they seemed understaffed because service was slow. The waiters were attentive but I just didn’t want to wait for my food any longer after having already waited two hours.

It’s amazing how a simple food item like ramen can be glorified this way. There is no need to bill the Berkshire pork nor the organic ingredients. At Ippudo, it’s all about the art involved in making the ramen. The high-quality ingredients just follow.

We ordered the bowls Ippudo is well known for: Akamaru Shin-aji and Shiromaru Moto-aji. The akamaru was appropriately served in a red bowl (aka is “red” in Japanese) while the shiromaru was in a white bowl. (Shiro translates to “white”.) The broth is milky white, a sign that pork bones have been simmered for a few hours, but it didn’t have that slimy smell you usually get in regular ramen broths. It tasted of pork, but clean and rich at the same time. You don’t begin to really appreciate the Ippudo signature until you start chewing on the noodles. Firm and tender noodles. I never had ramen noodles like this before even from the small ramenyas in Tokyo.

They ran out of the kakumi, or pork belly with braised daikon radish, when we visited so we supplemented our ramen bowls with the Ippudo roll instead: grilled pork with custard and cucumber. We slurped loudly and happily, appreciating every effort that has gone to making each noodle the way ramen should be.

Watch out Momofuku.

Momofuku Noodle Bar

171 1st Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets
212/777-7773
about $58 for two, with one beer, with tip
â™¥ â™¥

Updated: My bad. Momofuku Ko is still under construction in what used to be the original space of Momofuku Noodle Bar. Thanks, Zach.

Is there a stronger English word than savory that can describe the taste that is Momofuku? What I’m looking for is the translation for malinamnam, the Tagalog word for something really flavorful and delicious at the same time. What was Momofuku Noodle Bar is now a much larger and brighter space with more items in the menu that do not involve noodles. They needed it too, with all the accolades chef David Chang and his restaurants have been receiving the last couple of years. But that more-than-savory taste is still there.

A bowl of grilled baby octopus was tender. Julienned carrots and some seaweed were mixed in and made the dish more interesting. I thought the sesame seeds were a nice touch. They were out of the Brussels sprouts when I visited, so we ordered the Manila clams instead made pretty with slivers of celery.

I could have stopped there but every time I’m visiting one of the Momofukus, I can’t help but stuff myself. Even at more than $10, the big bowl of pork neck ramen with a beautifully-poached egg is a must-have. And it was as malinamnam as I remembered it from two stores down.

Ramen Setagaya

141 First Avenue between St. Mark’s Place and 9th Street
212/529.2740
about $30 each for three, with sake, with tip
â™¥

What shoyu, or soy sauce, ramen is to Rai Rai Ken is shio to Setagaya. Shio, or salt, ramen is the only type available at Setagaya, so you better like it more than you do your pork bone type, or tonkotsu, or fermented soybean paste, or what we all know as miso.

I walked in with two other friends who were craving a hot bowl of soup for dinner and I suggested that we try Setagaya. It was cold outside so the line that snaked around First Avenue when the restaurant first opened is now gone, but the cold air has moved inside with the customers. The glass wall does not help. We sat tucked in the corner by the kitchen bar, but every time someone came in, we felt a chill. We ate our dinner wearing our coats and sharing two small bottles of sake.

Setagaya follows the traditional shio broth recipe that includes boiling dried seafood, like anchovies and scallops, for hours at a time. In fact, all that saltiness comes from the ocean. The broth is not clear because it is also flavored with pork that’s been barbecued on a charcoal grill. It sounds good, but we all had the same complaint: the broth tastes too much of barbecue. The secret ingredient is reportedly Vietnamese salt, and boy, was it salty. I love shio ramen because it’s lighter than the other types, but the charred and salty flavors didn’t meld the night we visited.

The noodles, though, were perfect in texture and stringiness. I love my ramen noodles a little chewy and meaty, and Setagaya’s reminded me of those $5 giant bowls I ate in Tokyo’s ramenyas oh so many years ago. Stick with the regular size when you visit, though, because you can only have so much barbecue and salt flavor in your ramen.