Vegetarian & Vegan Ramen in NYC

Ippudo is famous for their Hakata-style tonkotsu ramen, but I have been enjoying working my way through the rest of their menu. Order of the day was their Mandala Miso ramen. Mandala is a Sanskrit word for “The Path to Enlightenment”, and in terms of Ippudo, that may be an apt moniker as this bowl brings the best of their offerings all together. The soup is their standard pork base, but amped up by an excellent blend of misos. There is also a hint of ginger that rounds things out nicely. The noodles are their thicker Tokyo wavy, which I prefer to their standard Hakata thin style. There were two types of chasu, a thin strip of pork loin and tiny slab or pork belly. Lots of menma bamboo shoots, corn and scallions round out this excellent bowl.

my favorite here is the shoyu. chiken broth is surprisingly rich. Tare makes me confused tho but I think thats what makes me keep drinking the soup. yuzu and greenonions good combo

no complaints at all, this place is solid! a strong recommend for people who love spiciness, they can add it to any dish with levels from 1-5. They had 3 different tsukemen on their menu, some cold noodles and some hot, this is mostly a special for the summer. The Ginger Shoyu and the Taka Shoyu was great too, you have the option to pick your chashu between pork and chicken. I've come to karakatta many years ago, but today this place is much much better. I strongly recommend people to revisit if they haven't been in a while @chewyaki

Decided to give the monthly special a try at the always reliable Nishida-shoten on 49th, which this month is the Kimchi Ramen. It is a chicken based broth, but I couldn’t discern that over the ample spices from the Kimchi. This was not usual tame version of kimchi one finds in Japanese places - this was much more sour and funky. The noodles were the thicker of the two varieties that are served at Nishida. The kimchi itself was at first difficult to find - it was only after I had polished off some of the noodles that I began to find some cabbage. I imagine when plating they are probably putting the kimchi right at the bottom of the bowl with the tare so that when the soup is added they are getting a good mix of those spices to turn the soup red. Three healthy slices of Kakuni pork and some delicious mushrooms were good toppings. I generally love age-dofu (fried tofu) but not so much in this bowl. As it soaked up the soup it just became soggy and difficult to pick up. And I didn’t love that this was an egg drop soup. Creative idea, but for me I would have just appreciated more kimchi. Still, overall a very good bowl, and I like that they have monthly specials to mix things up for the regulars.

Visited Nishida-shoten in the evening, which finally allowed me to sample some of their alcohol selections. But even more interesting was the special they were running: a bowl of “Mega Jiro”. Of course, I could not resist giving it a try. It is indeed “mega”. Tons of moyashi bean sprouts, cabbage, raw garlic and hunks of chashu pork. The soup had the familiar Jiro porky tang, leaning much more tang than pork. Surprisingly the ample servings of raw garlic were tamed by the karame tang from the shoyu tare, which pleasantly made the garlic a complementary jab rather than a knockout punch. The noodles were the thicker of the two varieties usually served at Nishida shoten but not the even thicker multigrain variety usually found in a Jiro bowl. Still, loved that they didn’t skimp on the cabbage as many Jiro offerings around town (and in Japan) have recently been wont to do.

That ramen was delicious. They specialize in the “jiro” style and it’s not a simple meal lol. Come with an empty stomach and a good spirit. I split a bowl with my friend and that was a great choice. The service was on point and I’m pretty sure our server was the only person working in the front at that time. He held it down.

did you guys try this mackeral ramen. secret hidden jem

Kohoko-ku Ramen is named after one of the wards of Yokohama, and having lived in a neighboring ward of Yokohama for three years, I was expecting to find some Yokohama specific things here(like some Iekei ramen?), but instead it is more a celebration of general Japanese ramen culture, with lots of old signage and even some beer crate stools. Their signature is pork broth tonkotsu, so I went with that in their offering of Kumamoto Ramen, which differed from the regular Tonkotsu with the addition of black garlic oil. Their signature broth did not say Kumamoto to me - actually more like a balanced tonkotsu shoyu that felt closer to Iekei than Kumamoto to me. But why get hung up on names, the soup was good though a little on the tepid side. The oodles were standard firm thin straight that were indeed in the style of Kumamoto. The toppings included two pieces of thicker cut chashu, a nice jammy egg, one piece of baby bok choy and an oddly shaped shishito pepper. Suddenly all of the “shishito” peppers in town are wide like mini bell peppers. What the heck is going on? Washed it down with a Kirin, as they had a huge factory a train stop away when I lived in Yokohama so it was the beer of choice locally. Fun tiny spot - not exactly destination ramen but pretty darn good.

Heavy broth unqiue base mixed with tonkotsu and shio. karage was excellent