You be the Sommelier

I cannot make authentic ramen at home, but I like to make an approximation, a noodle soup with a couple of toppings. Here are the things that I've found to work best when making a ramen-style soup at home:

--Definitely, absolutely, definitely use home made stock.

--Start with miso ramen. It's easy to mix good miso paste into the hot stock and come up with a tasty version of miso-style ramen broth. I find it harder to get it right with shoyu (soy sauce flavor) stock. Shio (salt flavor)...fughedaboudit.

--Don't use canned toppings. Might sound obvious, but it's tempting in terms of bamboo shoots. Skip it - they taste like the can.

--There are exactly 47 ways to hard boil an egg. As a topping for this soup, you want the egg to be set but the yolk to be oozy. Therefore, you must use way #16 here. Put the eggs in the pot before you turn on the heat and let them rise in temperature with the water. When a low boil is reached, let them simmer for 4 minutes, then put the eggs in a bowl of cold water.

--Put the broth in the bowl first, then the noodles. Maybe that's obvious, but I always used to put the noodles in and then pour the soup over them. Doesn't work as well.

I made an approximation of miso ramen, except I used soba noodles. Used my own chicken stock as the base, a stock in which I used a lot of ginger. Toppings were chopped scallions, cooked spinach, shredded (leftover) chicken, and half of an oozy hard boiled egg (it's nice to salt the yolk).

So that's the dish - miso soba noodle soup with a few toppings. Please, you be the sommelier. What would you serve with this dish? Leave your ideas in the comments and in a few days I'll share what I drank and whether or not it was a good match.

Scenes from the Hokkaido Food Fair

Went with a friend and also my 3 and a half year old daughter to the Hokkaido Food Fair at Mitsuwa, the large Japanese market in Edgewater New Jersey. We had to battle for a parking spot and it was very crowded inside.

There were all sorts of delicious looking things for sale, but sadly, most of these things were not available in small portions for sampling. I was tempted by plump looking Alaskan King Crab sushi, but the line was long and it was only available in $40 portions. The crab and asparagus croquettes, and all of the croquettes in fact, looked fantastic. But the line was approximately one city block long.

So we took a number at the Shingen Ramen stall and ordered KokuMiso Ramen, black miso ramen whose broth is reputed to simmer for over 100 hours, not dissimilar in length to the time we waited to receive our bowls. This place was crowded! Shall I tell you about the complicated test of strategy that involved securing a place to sit? Another time.

Well worth the wait, as it turns out. The ramen was delicious - yellow curly noodles were pleasantly chewy and the scallions, bamboo shoots, and pork toppings were good. It was the broth, however, that made this a great bowl. deeply flavored, impossible savory, and not at all heavy.

After eating our ramen we walked through the aisles of Mitsuwa, happily licking green tea soft serve ice cream. Troughs of squid, the most perfect burdock root I've ever seen, at least 50 different miso pastes (I bought Shiro and also a thick red country miso).

We saw bottles of Japanese white, a 1997 Koshu, perhaps the current release. At something like $35, I wasn't tempted.

If you live in the NYC area and you're not going to make it to Japan any time soon, you could do worse than to take a trip to Mitsuwa.

Two Things that Weren't Supposed to be Good, but Were.

There really is no point in me trying to make ramen - it's just not going to happen. It would be like trying to make sushi. I could eat raw fish slices with vinegared rice, but it requires many years of training to make sushi. Ramen too. So instead, I used ramen as the inspiration for noodle soup.

Who puts asparagus in ramen? Perhaps I am the first human ever to do so. Tofu, that's reasonable. Egg - necessary. Fried shallots? They certainly were delicious, but it is their distant cousin the scallion that appears in ramen. Daikon radish is also not a typical ramen topping, but these are the things I had in the house, and I like these things. Why shouldn't I put them on my "ramen?"Notice how I've completely glossed over the fact that I made my "ramen" with...soba noodles? Heresy.

The one genius stroke here, if I may say so, was the last minute inspiration to use miso as a base for the soup. I was going to mix my home made chicken stock with a bit of good soy sauce, maybe a little vinegar and garlic. But instead I ladled some of the warm stock into a bowl of country miso paste (the coarse brown kind), whisked until smooth, and pushed through a strainer into soup bowls. Then the soup stock, then noodles, then the toppings.

My kids devoured their smaller portions of this (except the shallots - they didn't go over well), and as completely wrong as this "ramen" was, it was delicious.

And because thus far I had so strictly adhered to tradition, we drank Chablis with this meal. On paper it's all wrong, I guess, but it seemed like it might work. And to be honest, I really wanted to try one of the bottles that I recently received in a sample pack, what is surely the most thoughtful sample pack I've ever received.

I don't receive a load of samples, which is a good thing because it's so rare that some one wants to send me something that might fit in with the things I write about here. This one was a total surprise. I wrote something not long ago complaining about money I spent on William Fèvre Chablis. The folks at Henriot (Fèvre's US importer) must have read the post and felt that my experience was atypical, and so they sent me a mini-boatload of Fèvre Chablis, a great map, lots of information about the wines, and a nice book of recipes that are meant to enjoy with Chablis wines (ramen is not one of them).

2006 William Fèvre Chablis 1er Cru Montmains, $30-35, Imported by Henriot, Inc. This is a wine from the négoce arm of the Fèvre operation (the estate grown wines are called Domaine William Fèvre). 2006 wasn't supposed to be such a great vintage in Chablis, from what I've heard. And I am already of the mind that I'm not a big Fèvre fan, and this isn't even one of the estate grown wines. But you know what - it was very good. A bit backwards upon opening, but with a bit of air it's quite lovely with definite high notes of seashells and iodine on the nose. Lemony, stony chardonnay fruit on the palate, a lot of sappy raw material still, but good intensity without being clunky. This wine is not as vibrant as some, but the shells continue on the finish and this couldn't be anything but Chablis. And it somehow worked perfectly with our savory miso inflected "ramen" with soba noodles, asparagus, and fried shallots.

How would this wine hold up next to de Moor's or Picq's wines? That's something I'll have to look into soon.

Zuzu Ramen - Ramen Comes to Brooklyn

It took me quite a while to try ZuZu Ramen. And I love ramen, really and truly. There are two things that kept me away all this time. First of all, it's not Japanese. The place is owned by the people who own Sheep Station, an Australian-themed joint a block away. Okay, the head chef is Japanese, but he comes from illustrious French kitchens like Jean Georges. I don't know...I would feel equally strange going to eat sushi at a place owned by an Armenian couple, or to have Doro Wat at an Italian restaurant. It's possible that the food is going to be great, but as long as I'm in NYC, it seems as though there are more more reliable options for authentic food.

The second thing that scared me is the menu. There are four ramen dishes at ZuZu, and two of them are fusion dishes, heavily borrowing from Thai cuisine. That's not a big deal, I guess, as long as there is a traditional ramen dish on the menu, which there is, the "ZuZu Ramen." But what kind of ramen is that, exactly - is this shoyu (soy sauce) ramen or shio (salt) ramen? The menu doesn't say. The whole thing didn't seem kosher to me, so I never went - it's just too easy to hop on the subway and go to any of my favorite Manhattan ramen temples.

BrooklynLady and I finally went to ZuZu Ramen, and I've been back twice since then. But here's the thing - there is literally only one thing on the menu that I will eat there, the house signature "ZuZu Ramen." The curly noodles are perfectly springy, there is deeply flavored broth that I don't think falls neatly into either the shoyu or the shio camp - it may instead be some sort of a paste that is mixed with dashi broth. The toppings are very nice too - lovely bamboo shoots, a single piece of crisp baby bok choy, scallions, a slow-cooked egg that runs happily into the broth, the obligatory sheet of nori (seaweed), and one very long, fatty, and completely satisfying slice of charshu (roast pork). This is a very good bowl of ramen, and the fact that it happens so close to my house is a great thing. There is really only one problem I can think of with this bowl - the price. It costs $14. That's Ippudo pricing, but this is not Ippudo.

The rest of the food is just not so great. The "Tasty Morsels" are not very tasty. Pork buns a la David Chang taste more of smokey char than of sweet-porky-scallion-cucumber harmony, and pork dumplings just aren't porky enough and the wrappers have no flavor and a cardboard-like texture. But these dishes are tame anyway, they're not what gets you in the door. The adventure at ZuZu comes in the form of Green Curry-Miso Ramen and Hot and Sour Ramen with Shrimp. And neither or them work, even when suspending my purist's view of what ramen should be.

We found Green Curry-Miso ramen to be unpalatable, and I love green curry, my favorite of the Thai curries. The broth here is simply overwhelming, though, the noodles and toppings cannot compete with the chili-lemongrass-kafir lime leaf intensity. It's war in a bowl, and it's just no fun. Hot and Sour Ramen is better, the broth more mellow, although it is definitely hot and sour, like Tom Yum soup in a Thai place. The problem here is the toppings - there are lots of small, tasteless, stringy, totally cheap shrimp. Save them, and give me one nice prawn, the way there is one slice of really nice charshu in the ZuZu ramen. There are also some little halved cherry tomatoes and big basil leaves, neither of which elevate the dish.

Sounds like I hate the place, but I don't. I would go there happily, but for ZuZu Ramen only, and as a neighborhood option, not as a first choice for ramen.

Brooklynguy's Manhattan Ramen Roundup

Ramen is not Cup 'O Noodles, dear god no. Ramen is soup with flour and egg noodles and various toppings. And people in Japan feel as strongly about ramen as we in New York feel about bagels or a slice of pizza. This is simple comfort food, but plenty of science is required to make it right. And if you put 10 New Yorkers in a room you'll have at least 5 opinions on what makes a bagel "right." Same thing in Japan with ramen.

I love ramen because when it's good, it's healthy, completely satisfying as a meal, and very inexpensive - if you add an order of gyoza (dumplings) and a drink, you're spending about $15. But a bowl of ramen on its own is a full meal, make no mistake. Food for all seasons, ramen is obviously perfect in cold weather, but I love it on a hot day too as a healthy lunch that's not heavy on meat.

If you're interested in ramen, or in good cinema, see the movie Tampopo, an ode to the joys of ramen and food in general, and made in the style of an American western.

Here are a few things that are generally true about ramen:

• The noodles should be boiled al dente. They should be springy and chewy, not soft.
• It is absolutely appropriate to eat ramen loudly, slurping the noodles into your mouth.
• The broth is either cloudy pork bone called Tonkotsu, or clear and made from pork, seafood (dried scallop, anchovy, mackerel, for example), chicken, vegetables, or some combination thereof.
• The broth is seasoned in two ways. 1) The chef uses her or his own seasoning called the Tar, which can be a mix of garlic, vinegar, oil, and who knows what else. The bowl that contains the Tar should never be emptied - it is continually replenished and the aged essence of the seasonings is a point of pride. In Japan there are ramen shops whose Tar bowls have been in continual use for over 50 years. 2) After a small amount of the Tar is placed at the bottom of the bowl, the chef seasons the soup with either Shoyu (soy sauce), Shio (salt), or Miso (fermented soybean paste, the same used to make Miso Soup. Light, red, and dark Miso pastes can be combined.
• The toppings are serious business. Six is traditional, but there may be more or less. Typical toppings include slices of Chashu (roast pork), shinachiku (fresh, seasoned bamboo shoots), scallions, seaweed, naruto (thinly sliced fish cake), boiled spinach or bean sprouts, cloud ear mushrooms, and egg (best when it's soft boiled and seasoned. Some ramen shops will offer chili oil, shucked corn, white pepper, crisp roast garlic slices, and other toppings upon request.
• The toppings are meant to be an interlude between bites of noodles. They are the garnish, not the meal.
• You may ask the chef to make changes to your bowl of ramen - extra pork, no scallions, whatever you like. This is common.

So without further ado, here are seven places to have Ramen in Manhattan, in the order of my preference. If there's a great ramen joint in your town, let us know in the comments. I can usually tell whether or not I would live in a city by the quality of its ramen.

Rai Rai Ken - 214 E. 10th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues.
A red paper lantern hanging outside announces this narrow and often crowded ramen joint. This is one of the first true ramen shops in NYC and it's still one of the very best. Three flavors are served: Shoyu, Shio, and Miso. While none of the individual elements at Rai Rai Ken are the best in town, they are each very very good, and the overall bowl is fantastic.

Noodles: curly, springy and light, but thick and satisfying. Excellent.
Broth: mix of vegetables, pork, and seafood. Deeply flavored but totally mild with no oil or grease, a healthy and wholesome feeling broth.
Toppings: Strong on the roast pork and bamboo, scallions and fish cake are nice. Weak on the egg, which is hardboiled and without real flavor.

Ramen Setagaya - 141 1st Avenue between St Marks Place and 9th Streets.
Very popular in Japan, Setagaya is famous for Shio ramen, and justifiably so. There are no other choices - when you go to Setagaya you're getting Shio ramen. It's the finest bowl of Shio ramen I've ever had, rich and mellow, and deeply satisfying. Sit at the bar and watch the chefs scurry about, or sit at a table and watch the untranslated and zany looking ramen shows on the big screen TV.

Noodles: straight and on the thin side, chewy and tasty. Excellent.
Broth: chicken and dried seafood, and utterly luscious. Salty, but in flavor, not as a sensation, if that makes any sense.
Toppings: Strong on the seasoned soft boiled egg (DELICIOUS), bamboo, seaweed and scallions. Pork is nice, but I'm not crazy about the way they throw the slices on the grill at the last minute.

Ippudo - 65 4th Avenue between 9th and10th Streets.
Also very popular in Japan, Ippudo is most notable for its incredible Tonkotsu broth. More of a restaurant than a ramen joint, and the higher prices reflect this. You sit at nice tables in a chic atmosphere, which in the context of ramen kind of turns me off, but to each their own. Whatever you might feel about the decor, there is no arguing about the velvety, incredibly rich and flavorful pork bone broth. I'd like to carry some around at all times in a hip flask. There are several types to try, differing only in the toppings and in whether or not there is spicy ground pork and oil added at the end. I like them all, but the Akamaru ramen is my favorite.

Noodles: thin and straight, springy. Very good, but a bit delicate.
Broth: perfect.
Toppings: They're fine, but nothing special. And you must pay an extra $3 if you want the seasoned soft bolied egg. It's all about the broth at Ippudo.

Naruto Ramen - 1596 3rd Avenue between 89th and 90th Streets.
That's right, the Upper East Side has a ramen joint. And it's pretty good, the toppings in particular. I once was served noodles that had a faint ammonia smell, as can happen when they are not so fresh. And the soup is not particularly distinctive. So not worth the trip way uptown if ramen is your goal, but worth it if you happen to find yourself up there already.

Noodles: curly and chewy, pretty thick, variable in freshness.
Broth: pork, chicken, and seafood base, served only as Shoyu ramen.
Toppings: excellent. Best roast pork of all of these places, thick and juicy. Best bamboo slices too. Good seasoned soft boiled egg.

Fukumatsu - 212 East 52nd Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues.
Also not worth a special ramen trip, but perfect if you're in the area and the craving hits you. Nothing is bad, but nothing is distinguished either, and the place is really more of a sushi restaurant. That said, Wednesday's lunch special is a bowl of ramen, a California Roll, 4 gyoza, and a salad for $12. So if you're hungry and don't mind the jostling of midtown...

Noodles: curly and springy.
Broth: Chicken, pork, and dried seafood broth served only as Shio ramen, but the rich salty taste is not there. Perfectly fine soup, but not great as Shio broth.
Toppings: fine, nothing special.

Momofuku Noodle Bar - 171 1st Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets.
There are plenty of good reasons to visit Momofuku noodle bar, but in my opinion, ramen is not one of them. This is a different take on ramen, and there's nothing wrong with a different take, but the results here are less impressive than the other options at this restaurant, and less impressive than all of the other ramen shops in the area (you're around the corner from Rai Rai Ken and down the street from Setagaya...what's wrong with you?!?). The problem is the broth - it's just too rich and porky, unbalanced. It's like broth on steroids, which as everyone knows, are illegal.

Noodles: fine, not as springy as you would expect, but fine.
Broth: pork (and good Berkshire pork too), but too porky.
Toppings: delicious and meaty slices of Berkshire pork belly, but that's all that's memorable.

Minca - 536 East 5th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.
This is the only place that I just didn't like. The broth tasted off, way too chicken-y, and too greasy. The bamboo shoots still had the can water flavor all over them. The scallions were limp, nothing was right here. Too bad because they offer many flavors of ramen and the setting is quite nice. It would be very difficult for me to go back though, the bowl was that poor.

Noodles: fine, but lost amidst the unpleasant chicken broth clinging to them.
Broth: I already told you - not fresh, unbalanced, poor.
Toppings: fine, but does it matter?