This might be a new record of the time between getting the pictures up from when they were taken!
Here goes our little vacation recap!

I had it all planned out.  Neatly mapped on an excel sheet like I always do for our trips – activities, meals, plans and alternate ideas all plotted and color coded (its the PMP in me I can’t help it!).  Only this time I had a slight hunch that things just MIGHT be different…

Our original plan was to leave early on Saturday morning and get to the condo around noon to drop our luggage off and then get right back on the road to head down to Cape May for lunch, sightseeing and dinner…That plan quickly went into the crapper.  :(  The day we left the region got a record snowfall for the month of October!   That made driving down to Jersey quite a trip.  At some points it was blizzard like conditions with little visibility.  By the time we were half way there most of the snow was just rain.  But we decided that even if it was just raining, continuing onto Cape May would be a waste since a lot of the things I wanted to see/do were outdoors.  Our plan was to reschedule that for another day during the week.   It ended up being a good decision since we were able to take our time unpacking our luggage and organizing the place to our liking for the week.  I also like to wash all of the sheets and towels on the first day since the apartment only gets used a few times a year…I think the last time my aunt was there was Easter!

We settled in and cooked dinner.  Since the weather was crappy, some comfort food was in order. String beans with ground pork, steamed spare ribs and melon/pork bone soup.

Since the boy had the nerve to complain that whenever I cook, I always make the same thing…so I thought up some new dishes to make this time around.  There were some definite hits and misses. Recipes to follow!

I must say that I am most proud of my soup!  Its my first pot of ‘Chinese soup’ that I’ve ever made!  *pats self on back!*  Although its a pretty simple one, I still think its delish!  I remember my grams always making this with her bounty of melon from the garden in the summer.    And it couldn’t be simpler…bring some pork bones, a few slices of ginger, and a few slices of Chinese salted turnip to a boil.  Let it boil for about 15-20 minutes and reduce to a low simmer for 2-2.5 hours.  During the last 30 minutes throw in some dried shrimp and your melon.  Let the melon cook until tender and add salt to taste.  TA DA!  :)  I actually didn’t need to add much salt because of the turnips!

After dinner the boy helped me clean up and we settled down and watched Cars 2…a nice eding to a long day.

The agenda for our second day was to go running on the boardwalk and then hit up  Hooters for lunch since the boy had to watch the Giants game.  Running was important for us because we didn’t want to be complete sloths all week.  :)  The morning runs were gorgeous!  We headed out about 10am each day.  Its so peaceful and scenic on the boardwalk in the off season!

picture of the beach snapped from my phone before our run

Lunch was pretty uneventful…Hooters wings were good as usual.  Hooters has the DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket package so they play every game every Sunday.  It was pretty crowded in there and plenty of people were in their jerseys cheering on their teams.   The waitress we had was slightly over attentive and would ask us every 15 minutes if we needed anything so we decided to pack it up and leave.  The boy ended up watching the end of the game on the 2nd floor of the condo where they have a big tv in the common area.

Also on the plan today was to check out Steel Pier.  I haven’t been there in years and during the off season they are open on the weekends.  Instead of driving we decided to walk (I just mapped it out and its 1.5 miles each way!) that way we could snap some nice pictures on the way.  They had a giant Monopoly board in front of Caesars so of course we had to stop and horse around a bit!  Did you know that the board game was based on places in or around Atlantic City?  :)

As we got closer to the pier the boy and I noticed that it didn’t look open…no flashing lights…no rides were on…we got to the gate and there was a sign kindly notifying us that it was closed for a private party!  BOO!!!

Since we walked all the way down to the end of the boardwalk we went into Trump Taj Mahal for a bathroom break and to wander around a little bit.  After a little froyo stop we were pleasantly surprised to see a  White House Sub Shop had opened there!  It worked out nicely since we had planned on going there once during our visit anyway!  The boy had the bright idea of getting enough for two meals – he wanted to try the hot sandwiches as well as the original.  These babies are enormous!  We got 2 halves of the hot variety and one whole of the original.  This probably would have lasted me a week but the boy can eat like a linebacker so it was a good amount for two meals for us.

On our way back we passed by an arcade that had the boy’s absolute favorite…CRANE GAMES!  A row of at least 15 games lined both sides of the place.  It wasn’t a question.  We WERE going in!  They had everything from domos to smurfs to care bears…to our favorite – angry birds!   He ended up winning two – the yellow one and the black one.

Camera and sandwiches in tow, back to the boardwalk for the 1.5 mile trek back to the condo!

When we got back we parked our asses in front of the TV and spent the next few hours watching Fringe as we munched on our sandwiches.

We thought that it would be a good idea to avoid the outlets on the weekends so we saved it for Monday!  Leftover sandwiches for lunch and then off to The Walk we went!  We got some pretty good deals…but the best of the day was by the boy – he got a pair of cashmere lined gloves from Coach for $48!  I was able to pick up some air freshener refills from Bath and Body Works and some sweaters from Banana Republic.  Overall we got what we needed and not too much impulse buying!  :)

Since we did a lot of walking I decided that I wasn’t in the mood to cook dinner so we decided to take the car out and drive to Harrah’s to hit up the Waterfront Buffet.  So far this is my favorite one that I’ve been to.  They have a huge variety of food and more importantly its CLEAN!

Fast forward to Tuesday…we woke up for another morning run.  The agenda for the day was to check out the AC light house, aquarium and The Pier Shops at Caesars.  After our run the lazy bug bit us.  Hard.  We decided to skip the light house and aquarium.  I cooked a quickie lunch of instant noodles and wontons and then we parked ourselves on the couch for another few hours of Fringe!

 Before we knew it, the sun had set and our tummies were rumbling again!  I had mapped out 4 Viet restaurants near the condo that we could try.  The first one we walked to was closed for renovations!  So off to our second choice.  Our hopes weren’t that high since our favorite Viet restaurant in Brooklyn still hasn’t been matched!

The boy got the equivalent of what would be a #1 at most restaurants.  He said that there was a little more tendon in there than he would like and he also found some meatballs in there which we’ve never seen in a #1!  I tried the broth and it tasted very herbal as opposed to the usual mix of spices in pho broth.

I wanted something on the lighter side so I ordered the ban xeo which was actually much better than the one I get from our fav spot at home!

The springrolls were a fail.  They used regular egg roll wrappers instead of the rice paper wrappers that is normally used.  The insides were a bit flavorless and they were pretty greasy.

The summer rolls on the other hand were yummy!  Freshly made (wrappers were still slightly warm!) and the ingredients inside were at their prime!

After dinner we walked back to the boardwalk and back to the condo to watch more…you guessed it Fringe!

Wednesday marked the half way point of our vacation….we went for another morning run and then stopped into Starbucks so I could FINALLY get my first red cup drink of the season!  I made another quickie lunch of snow cabbage, pork and bamboo shoot soup noodles (I’m getting good at this!) and we watched a few more episodes of Fringe before heading out to The Pier Shops.  No picture of lunch because as delicious as it is…this dish was horrifically un-photogenic!

I’m a bit of a MAC junkie so I collected all of my empty containers and brought them with me since I knew there was a MAC inside The Pier.  I had enough to get 4 free lipsticks with their recycling program!  I probably could have found enough empty containers to get 5 lipsticks if I really tried!   I decided on just two lipsticks for now.  :)

We walked into Caesars from The Pier and found that they had a video roulette table there!  The type where its a live dealer spinning the wheel and dropping the ball, but instead of the table with everyone reaching over one another to put their chips down and such, you sit at your individual screen and place your bets there instead!  Just my style!  No one to invade my personal space!  No dirty chips!  Too bad about half the screens had “out of service” flashing on them!

Dinner this night was Cornish hens and pasta.  Big FAIL here…  And I was so excited about cooking my little hens too!   Flavor wise it was fine…it is just that the oven at the condo wasn’t accurate and I didn’t have an oven thermometer to check the temp.  In the end, two little hens took over 90 minutes to cook!  Resulting in overcooked pasta as well.

I cleaned and dried the hens…put a little butter under the skin and sprinkled the top with Mrs. Dash salt free seasoning.   I stuffed 1/4 of an onion into the cavity, placed a slice of pancetta on top and laid them down on some carrots and potatoes in the pan. After an hour in the oven the juices were still not running clear!   So back in they went.  In the meantime I had made some pasta – just an olive oil and garlic sauce.  Here comes the fatal mistake…I hadn’t timed it out well….so the pasta had gotten cold by the time the hens were ready.  So I put the pan back on the heat so it could heat up….but since it was an oil based sauce it made the pasta super crispy!  FAIL!

The pancetta was probably the best part of the meal….like a porky potato chip!

eyes tired from reading yet?
stomach growling from all the food pics yet?
…to be continued

I haven’t finished sorting through all of the pictures yet to pull the ones I want to post…so I’ll just skip ahead to this post that has been sitting in my drafts for a while now.

E and I meet up about 2x a month to go to dinner…when we have a Shecky’s event we usually head down to Chinatown to grab a bowl of cheap noodles.  Our favorite place to go for this is Hong Kong Station.  My best way to describe this place would be similar to those salad bars that you find in the city…where you pick your lettuce, toppings, dressing and they mix it all together for you.  The difference here is that you pick your type of noodle – ranging from thin rice noodles to thick udon noodles and everything in between; your toppings – various meats and veggies; and then your soup flavorings (scallion-garlic oil and/or curry-garlic sauce).

The service is fast, food is tasty and have I mentioned CHEAP!  :)  From the last time we went I think the noodles were $2.50 and then each topping is about $2.  Our bowls are always under $10.

As far as the toppings go – there is a huge variety.  From common things like ham, fried eggs, veggies, and grilled chicken to some more exotic things (ie things that I won’t touch but everyone tells me I should try cuz its good ) like beef tripe, beef stomach, pork intestines, chicken gizzards…and all of that fun stuff.

I usually get 2-4 toppings depending on how famished I’m feeling.  Obviously in the below picture I was starving since I got 4 toppings!  I like that if you choose chicken, spam or ham they will take it over to the griddle and heat it up there for you since the soup won’t heat it thoroughly enough.   And if you’re not in the mood for noodles you can also get the toppings over rice!

Off to the side of the cashier they also have some additional condiments that you can add to your noodles like soy sauce, chili oil, sesame oil, vinegar, white pepper, etc.

Thumbs up!

45 Bayard St # A
New York, NY 10013-4929
(212) 233-0288

We decided on an order of fries, potstickes and tteokbokki to start with and a combo of wings, drums and chicken strips for our entree.

The fries were great! I think they are double fried and reminded me of Burger King fries.

When we ordered the potstickers they asked us if we wanted it tossed in a soy garlic sauce or hot and spicy. We decided to go the safe route and opted for soy garlic. We were presented with an order of nine pieces arranged on a long platter. First off, these were obviously not potstickers. At first glance we noticed that they were clearly deep fried and not pan fried as potstickers should be. Identity crisis aside, we dug in. Two words. Not impressed. Since they wee deep fried, the skin was really hard and crispy, the filling was bland and the overall taste was overpowered by the sauce that they were doused in.  Despite the saucy coating, these were actually pretty DRY!

When the tteokbokki came out our jaws dropped. In the past at restaurants when we ordered this it was a small appetizer sized portion with about a dozen rice cakes and some fish cake slices. This time however was very different. The plate was about 14 inches across with a combination of rice cakes, fish cakes, noodles and cheese! A little overwhelming at first but we dug in. A little on the spicy side but we enjoyed it. A note about rice cakes though…they can be very dense and filling so if you have a small appetite, I’d suggest notbwasting any stomach real estate on this dish.  I enjoyed this dish…the presence of the noodles weirded me out at first…but  I got over it quickly!  My tolerance for spicy things isn’t all that high and the density of the rice cakes was quickly filling up my tummy…so after a few bites this was pushed over to the side.  (It made great leftovers the next day!)

Now onto the chicken…this is what you were waiting for, no?  I got a combination of the wings and drums and half spicy half soy garlic.  At this point I was pretty full already.  But I tried one of each sauce type for the sake of the review!   The spicy ones would have definitely been too much for me if I had ordered it for the entire order.  It was too overpowering.  The soy garlic was much better!  The chicken remained crispy even though it was quite some time before we actually ate it!   My brother had no problem polishing them off when I brought him the doggie bag so I’m assuming it got a thumbs up from him as well!  Each order of chicken also comes with a small bowl of pickled daikon.  I didn’t try any since I was already stuffed to the gills!

I don’t recall much about the chicken strips…which makes me think they were middle of the road.  I’d probably order if if I wasn’t in the mood to deal with chicken bones though.

I’d recommend this restaurant.  The menu isn’t too large that its overwhelming nor is it too small where you feel like the ONLY thing you can get is chicken.

E did end up having her birthday dinner here a few weeks later.  They reserved the back section of the top floor for her and it was nothing less than chaotic.  While I would recommend the restaurant for a normal sized party, it was a major fail for a large group (35 people!).  The chicken was still good though!

Thumbs up! (as long as you don’t have an obscenely large party!)

BonChon
207 W. 38th St. New York
NY 10018
212.221.3339

Fast forward to Friday – I ran to Whole Foods during lunch at work to get the groceries we’d need and sent the boy to the liquor store on his way home from work to pick up some wine for us.The menu that night would be…whatever looked good at Whole Foods and was fast to cook…since we’d all be coming from a long day of work.
The menu ended up being:
Shrimp with a spicy herbed sauce
Cod cakes with salad
Linguine with white clam sauce

Let’s start with the shrimp…and that green sauce.  Oh that green sauce!  Not quite sure what to call this dish.  A few months back Rach invited us over to her place for dinner and her chef friend whipped this up for us…it was so good we all asked him for the recipe and I quickly jotted it down on the brown paper Rach had laid out on the table and snapped a picture with my phone.  No measurements, no proportions…just judging by eye and taste.  I guess that’s how some chefs work!

I knew I wanted to recreate this dish one day because we all couldn’t stop dipping the bread into the ‘green stuff’ as we had dubbed it for the rest of the night. And this time was no different!

The sauce was a breeze to prepare.  Wash the herbs, chop the garlic and chile, throw it all into a container with a drizzle of olive oil, lemon and salt and blend away!

If I had to make some adjustments the next time around, I probably would have used some more salt and lemon and actually go find chiles instead of using jalepeno peppers.  Other than that, we all thought the recreation was on par.

While at Whole Foods the cod cakes looked appetizing so I picked up one for each of us.  I should have gotten some tartar sauce to go with it…they were terribly dry!  Looks can be so deceiving!

For the linguine with white clam sauce I had picked up some semi fresh pasta since it would help us cut down on the cooking time.

The sauce was thrown together mainly from memory.  We sauteed some onion and garlic together in olive oil, placed the fresh clams in the pan to cook – and removed them individually as soon as they opened up.  Add a bottle of clam juice to the pan and reduce to enhance flavors.  We then added a can of chopped and a can of whole baby clams to the mix with their juices and returned the fresh clams to the pan to reheat.  Once everything was heated through, we tossed the pasta in with the sauce and mixed in some chopped parsley right before serving.

After we finished dinner and cleaned up, Pear told me that he had found a new cherry vodka that was decent.  At $20 for the bottle it definitely wasn’t bad…but its no where near as good as my beloved Ultimat black cherry vodka!

Straight from the freezer and poured on the rocks with a squeeze of lime.  I couldn’t think of a better way to end a Friday night!  Sometimes staying in with friends catching is better than going out.

Bonus question…Can you tell the difference between parsley and cilantro??? I couldn’t!

In a rush to make our movie showing, we decided that we’d grab a quick meal at Jup She.  The menu is on the small side in comparison to other Korean restaurants I’ve been to.  They don’t offer the option to cook the meat at your table at this restaurant, which I don’t mind at all.  I don’t always want to walk out smelling like BBQ after a Korean meal!  Not all places have great ventilation.

Most people I observed ordered the bi bim baps from the menu.  There are several types to choose from on the menu ranging from tofu, pork, bulgogi, and galbi to name a few.  I used to order the spicy pork one a lot…that was until I discovered my love for soon dubu and I haven’t turned back.

As with all Korean restaurants I’ve been to, the meal started with the server placing some banchan on the table.  A lot of reviewers complain about the small quantity and variety of them here.  We have been to some restaurants that give you as many as 8-12 varieties.  I’m not quite fond of them most of the time, so their small offering was more than enough for me. There were 4 dishes in total.  They comprised of kimchi, pickled daikon, potato salad and a savory steamed egg custard.  The steamed custard was a nice touch and unexpected.  But overall none of the banchan were really memorable and we just picked at them.
To start with we ordered an order of the duk bokki.  Thick, chewy rice cakes and fish cakes slathered in a sweet and spicy sauce.  NOM!  I’ve made this at home a few times and I prefer my version better because I hate sesame seeds…and this dish is always loaded with them.  Also, I like mine extra spicy and its usually been on the sweeter side whenever I order it.

On this night the boy decided on the bulgogi bi bim bap and it didn’t disappoint.  He likes to let it sit for a few minutes after it arrives to the table to let the edges crisp up some more.  Sometimes we find that during the peak hours they don’t let the stone bowls heat up enough so your rice won’t get that highly desired crispy bottom to it.

I went with the soon dubu as usual.  Its not the greatest from here but I like it enough to keep ordering it!  The best I’ve had so far was from BCD in Ktown…but it sure is better tasting than what I make at home.

Thumbs up!

Jup She
171 Grand Street
NY NY 10013

A few months back after some retail therapy at Bloomingdales, E and I decided to head over to chinatown for a quick dinner.

In my search to find a restaurant that serves banh beo in the city, Tu Do came up several times and had great reviews overall (on yelp). We got there pretty late (slightly after 9…and the restaurant closes at 10 on weekdays) and quickly placed our orders. Two bowls of pho, an order of spring rolls (I’m a firm believer that the spring roll will determine how good or bad the rest of the food will be!), and an order of banh beo.

The spring rolls were standard. Nothing spectacular…a little lacking in the flavor department. The texture was a lot softer than I’m used to as well…perhaps too much vermicelli and veggies in it and not enough pork…definitely not enough seasoning!

E got her pho with sliced beef and I got mine with grilled chicken.  Upon inspection of the bowl of noodles I wasn’t sure what I was getting into…it seemed as if there was an oil spill on top of both bowls! And it turns out, I have never had an oilier bowl of pho before! It was rather unpleasant. If the broth had some umami it would have made up for the oil slick. But unfortunately, that was not the case either. At least the noodles had decent texture…

Now onto the banh beo…I wasn’t sure what to expect since I’ve never had it before. From wiki: “small steamed rice cake or rice pancake in Vietnamese cuisine. It is white in color and typically features a dimple in the center, which is filled with savory ingredients including chopped dried or fresh shrimp, scallions, mung bean paste, crispy fried shallots, fish sauce, rice vinegar, and oil.”

Not sure if this was supposed to be served warm or not?? But ours was cold.  The rice cakes were smooth in texture and not too dense. The toppings were fried garlic, mung bean paste (unbelievably dry and crumbly!), scallions and dried shrimp.  Like the others, this dish also lacked flavor but was saved by splashing some of nuoc nam on it. I would give it another shot..maybe just not at this restaurant.

Overall the whole meal was pretty lacking and I was quite disappointed.  Maybe it was because we were there close to closing time?  But then again, that is no excuse to serve sub par food! E was there in the past and said that the food was never this bad.  I’d give the restaurant another try and chalk it up to an off day.

Thumbs down!

New Tu Do
102 Bowery St
New York, NY 10013

Back in February while chatting with Perry, it was concluded that he has been living in his apartment for over a year and has never hosted a real dinner party! The most frequent cooking his stove sees is in the form of instant noodles and dumplings!

It was decided.  President’s day weekend we’d all gather for dinner at Pear’s!  Pear, Amanda, Ben, Rach, the boy and myself.

Since it was still pretty chilly out, it was mandatory that a fire be lit!

Which proved to be a good idea…because Amanda stepped on something wet in the kitchen and ended up using the fireplace as her own personal sock dryer!

While dinner was cooking, Amanda and Ben took advantage of the newest purchase in the apartment: Pear’s 3d tv

And we snacked on some appetizers…I threw together a simple antipasto platter with cheese and some meats…too bad the crackers were mostly crushed and stale!   The wine was from fresh direct’s 20 under $20 wine list.

The menu of the night was parbaked bread from fresh direct, caesar salad, rosemary garlic roasted potatoes, braised short ribs, and snow crab legs.  Our little version of a surf and turf!

I helped prep the potatoes…so from what I remember, this is what went into them:tri colored potatoes, chopped rosemary, garlic, olive oil, and sea salt.  Roasted in the oven for about 30 minutes and then finished with a drizzle of truffle oil! Delish!

The spread:

After dinner Pear entertained us a little with his other new addition to the apartment:

As we weren’t deep enough into a food coma, dessert was still to come!

Homemade flan and green tea cookies from Rach, cookies from Ben and Amanda, Italian pastries from me and the boy.  finished off with some coffee and sparkling wine…A perfect ending to a perfect night!

this year we decided to invite some girls along to join us for a hot pot at ash’s place.  for those of you who don’t know what “hot pot” is…just think of it as asian fondue!  you dip a variety of raw meats/veggies/tofu/noodles, etc into a pot of broth to cook it.  finish it off by dipping into your own sauce creation just prior to eating.

the plans were set.  i’d drop the boy off at his secret santa exchange and then head over to ash’s to start our mini feast…wrong!  on saturday morning the boy tells me the guys are relocating their secret santa to ash and steve’s house!  a quick text confirmation with ash proves true.  why? because the boys didn’t make dinner plans/arrangements and decided to crash on ours!  no big deal…except i went grocery shopping for food for 5 girls…not 5 girls plus 10 guys!  after some quick scrambling, the boy and i managed to pick up some more food for our meal that now turned into a feast!  see, when you’re buying for only 5 small appetites, you’re quite limited to the amount of stuff you can actually get…but add 10 boy’s stomachs to that and you can double/triple the variety!

off to the market and $60 later the boy and i shuffled over to steve and ash’s place to start prepping.  now i thought prepping would be quick and easy…there was no cooking involved by me after all since all of the cooking would take place at the table.  BUT…in reality it took about 3 hours to prep all of the food!  washing, chopping, arranging, etc!

the spread was: nappa cabbage, spinach, 3 types of noodles – mung bean, udon, vermicelli, fish tofu, fish balls – both regular and stuffed with tobiko!, enoki mushrooms, firm tofu, fried tofu,  pork dumplings, xo wontons, konyaku bundles, and lots of meat – two types of beef – fatty and regular, chicken and pork.  if i had more time to plan, i probably would have bought less of each item so i could increase the variety even more…manila clams anyone???

after everyone was stuffed to the gills, the boys went to open their gifts.  they drew cards to determine the order and off they went.  some were too excited about opening their gifts to stand long enough to pose for a nice picture with it!

the boy got what he wanted from his wish list – he broke his gaming headset a while back so he got a replacement.

many thanks to our host steve, ash and baby O!  ironically, steve hates hot pot…and thats the reason why ash and i decided to do it that night – because steve was supposed to be out of the house for dinner!

this year our party expanded to 6 of us and we stood (squashed) at the bar waiting for our name to be called.  pictured below is a lychee martini and a sake (not sure what type though).  the martini was mine…my preferred drink of choice is vodka on the rocks, but since i had skipped lunch (so i could leave early and beat traffic!), i figured i should have something a little lighter.  once again i am reminded of why i don’t like martinis and mixed drinks.  often times they are too sweet and syrupy and this one was no different.  i can’t remember what was in the drink exactly (bad blogger!), i want to say it was vodka, sake and lychee syrup of some sort.  next time i’ll stick to my vodka…

after an anxious hour our name was finally called and off we marched to a booth.   since there was 6 of us, we decided on 4 appetizers to share.

shishito peppers - deep fried peppers served with lemon and yuzu salt…i skipped these since i’m not a pepper fan
bakuretsu tofu – spicy tofu casserole with minced pork and crunchy noodles served in a hot stone pot…we dug in once everyone was done taking pictures, therefore rendering the once crunchy noodles soggy…i guess that means that we’ll just have to revisit sometime soon to reevaluate the dish!  from what i remember, it was similar to soondubu and i liked it!
maguro tataki – lightly seared tuna with Ippudo sauce…i don’t do raw so i didn’t try this…but when it was brought over to the table, we were instructed by the waiter to try and eat this in one bite all together with the fish, avocado, grapefruit and daikon(?).  the boy commented that the flavor of the fish was lost with all of the accompaniments
hirata buns – steamed buns filled with your choice of pork or chicken, served with ippudo original spicy buns sauce…NO trip to ippudo is complete without these buns!  they come two per order so we got two orders of them.  i haven’t been to momofuku yet, so i can’t compare these buns to theirs…but if they’re anything alike, i’m in!  i don’t think the bun itself is house made, it tastes like the ones you can buy in the chinese supermarkets…what makes this extra nommable though is the spicy sauce that is slathered over the pork and the squirt of (kewpie?) mayo.

now on to what we came for!

the boy ordered the kogashi miso ramen which is ‘ippudo chintan’ based noodle soup, a dark rich broth made from charred miso, topped with pork belly chashu, 1/2 boiled egg, cabbage, spinach and naruto.  i got the karaka kogashi miso version which is the same as his except mine had ippudo’s “special blended hot spice”.  additionally, i ordered a side order of bakudan – ippudo’s original spicy paste for an extra kick.

after the boy finished his ramen, he asked for kae-dama – an extra serving of noodles.  make sure you save enough soup if you plan on doing this!

during dinner we were chatting about ippudo compared to men kui tei and which one we prefer.  we concluded that although they are both ramen houses, they are in a completely different class and can’t really be compared.  ippudo is more of a special occasion type of place…whereas men kui tei is always an option if we’re in the mood for a good bowl of noodles.  i have never been to ippudo with less than an hour wait for a table – even in the summer!  at men kui tei the wait is never more than 15 minutes.   both places have several types of broth options, ippudo’s broth wins hands down.  there is a richness and complexity of flavor that can’t be compared to any other bowl of ramen i’ve had.

when it came time for ordering dessert, we thought that two would be plenty.  the boy and i aren’t big dessert eaters but the others were.

matcha brulee -green tea creme brulee topped with gelato…good grief charlie brown!  i was afraid that this would be overly sweet but i was proved wrong!  both the custard and the gelato lacked the fake/bitter taste that many green tea desserts have.  i would definitely order this again the next time i come back!
annin sorbet - sweet tofu custard topped with your choice of sorbet…we were given our choices of sorbet to top the custard and we decided on blood orange.  OMG.  think creamsicle but BETTER!

coming from a non dessert eater, ippudo, you did me good!

Ippudo NY
65 4th Ave
(between 9th St & 10th St)
New York, NY 10003