Navigating New York: Last Dinner in NYC

I love Japanese food. And I love ramen. I am always on a quest to find the best ramen in any major city that I visit, if they are available.

Since New York is a multiculturally diverse city, I knew I would find some good ramen here. I had planned on going to Ippudo after finding out there was one a few blocks from our Midtown hotel, but it had been elusive.

On the first night in NYC, I couldn’t find (I blame it on the heavy rains) and I ended up dining at Nippori, which was also good. This time around, I wanted to ensure I had a meal there.

Since my husband and our son intended to go spend some time at the LEGO Store, I told them I was going to have my ramen and that I’d meet them at the hotel lobby after.

I walked from Times Square to West 51st Street and very easily found Ippudo Japanese Ramen Brasserie very easily. How did it escape me the first time?

The restaurant is located at the lower level of a commercial building, and the entrance was inconspicuously hidden behind a staircase that leads to a different restaurant with a much bigger and brighter sign. No wonder I missed it the other night. But in retrospect, I should have recognized its trademark wooden logo with red and black Japanese kanji characters. Ippudo has become popular since it opened in 1985 in Fukuoka, Japan, and is now a restaurant chain with branches all over the world. It currently has three locations in New York City.

I got a seat at the bar right at the centre of the restaurant facing the open kitchen where I could watch the kitchen staff prepare the food. The atmosphere was a lot noisier than that of the other ramen restaurant from two days ago because as patrons were trickling in and filling up all the tables, the restaurant staff would greet the newcomers in loud unison saying things in Japanese I do not have any idea of, but I am guessing, some kind of “welcome.”

The kitchen staff would also do this as a way of announcing that the food is ready and the serving staff would in turn, respond in unison. It didn’t bother me though. I was sitting at the bar and the staff’s enthusiasm simulates that authentic sake bar rowdiness. I am not sure if the diners sitting at booths and regular tables feel the same way, but it just makes the dining experience authentically Japanese, in an izakaya sort of way.

Since it was such a hot and humid evening and I had spent a good portion of the late afternoon walking and commuting, I felt I deserved a cold treat. I ordered a lychee martini (vodka, sake, triple sec, lychee juice and real lychee fruit), which was very refreshing.

I just wanted a bowl of ramen that night and I knew their servings are generous, but I couldn’t help but order a plate of appetizers as well. I had heard about their famous Ippudo Japanese Ramen Brasserie – steamed buns filled with your choice of pork, chicken, or eggplant and eringi mushrooms, with original spicy bun sauce and mayo – and I could see from the number of plates coming out of the kitchen that it was extremely on high demand.

Since ramen is pork based, I decided to go with the vegetarian buns even though the pork ones are the most popular.  The server who took my order told me that it’s actually his favourite. And true enough, when I sank my teeth into them (there were two pieces per order), I was lost in the softness of the buns, the perfection of the eggplant filling which was crispy on the outside but tender and juicy on the inside, and the richness of the sauce flavor.

It reminded me of the buns I used to gorge on in the Philippines when I was a little girl. One of my uncle’s showrooms (he had a chain of construction supplies stores back then) where my one of my aunts worked, was located on the ground floor of a commercial building and directly above it, was a Chinese restaurant called Kowloon House. We used to either eat there or order take out food all the time and one of my favourite items on the menu was their cua pao (pork belly bun), which is actually a Taiwanese street food. I remembered how I loved the soft, spongy bun and how my aunt would order extra plain buns for me because I preferred it plain.

 Ippudo’s buns are very similar to these. They were so good that I had to stop myself from eating the second one because I knew a big bowl of ramen was soon to come. I asked the server if I could ask for a to-go container, but he informed me that the restaurant’s policy does not allow diners to take home food. However, he added with a wink, that he’d be glad to give me extra napkins on the side so I could wrap up my bun and put it in my purse. I told him that I could have finished both buns in one go, but that I needed to reserve some space in my tummy for the ramen.

My ramen arrived in no time. I ordered the Akamaru Modern Ramen, a bolder version of the classic Shiromaru Ramen – their original tonkotsu (pork) broth with thin noodles topped with their secret umami dama miso paste, double chasu (marinated pork belly and pork shoulder), cabbage, sesame kikurage mushrooms, scallions, and fragrant garlic oil.  I requested additional toppings – nitamago (soft boiled seasoned egg) and shigureni (pulled pork chasu). Oh, you should see the bowl. It was like an explosion of colours that, I was pretty sure, was a prelude to an explosion of flavours.

The broth was thick and silky, was smooth on the palate, yet rich and full-bodied. Apparently, this restaurant created the “double maturation process” which does not stop with simmering the broth for 18 hours in a safely crafted soup pot, but goes beyond by further simmering it in lower heat for another full day, resulting in another layer of depth to its taste. And yes, my taste buds definitely appreciated this treat.

Any ramen dish is characterized by how superb the broth is, and this one was a winner. The homemade noodles were just the right thickness and texture to absorb the spicy miso and infused oil, and the double chasu, braised in soya sauce and simmered in their special process and aged in a temperature vacuum was succulent and had a melt-in-your-mouth texture. I finished the entire bowl, and I surprised myself by eating the remaining hirata bun that I didn’t have to pack it after all.

Full and satiated, I said my goodbyes to the restaurant staff and walked back to the hotel. Of course, my husband and son were still at The LEGO Store by the time I arrived at the lobby. I called my husband to remind him of the time as it was already almost 8:00 p.m. He assured me that they will be done in half an hour.  So, after giving a heads up to the reception staff that we will be taking out our luggage in 30 minutes or so, I sat at the breakfast lounge and read a book. There were fruit-infused water and some mixed juice drinks available, but I helped myself to the leftover coffee.

When my boys arrived, my husband got our car from the parkade two blocks away, parked it in front of the lobby entrance, and hurriedly loaded our luggage.

It had been a long day…a long, three days actually. I settled comfortably in the front seat and told our son he could sleep for the duration of our drive to New Jersey, our next destination.

I knew my husband was exhausted, too, and I wished I could have told him to get some sleep. But he was the designated driver. Tired as he was though, he still had a lot of energy left to talk about the plans for the next day because the next legs of our journey were for him – we were off to see some rocks and some stars in New Jersey!