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34 1/2 St. Marks Place
Sometimes second place is not necessarily a bad thing.
No, I'm not trying to find excuses for the 2007, 18-1 Patriots. Nor for my Packers that year, which finished second place to the Giants in the NFC. Nor are they for my UW Badgers, which suffered back to back heartbreaking defeats in the Rose Bowl.
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| small shoebox interior - packed! |
But in the case of my recent ramen adventure, I ended up seeking out Setagaya, after finding Ippudo stuffed to the brim, and with a wait list, at 2:30pm on a week day. Man, that place is printing money. (and "what recession?" they would say....)
So to avoid the shit show, I detoured to St. Mark's Place, which is a short walk away, which has another cluster of ramen joints in the area. The first one in mind was Setagaya. So here we go.
Setagaya sits on the north side of St. Mark's Place, and the store itself resembles a little shoe box. Big enough to fit a communal table in the center, and then bar top style seating all around. As always, I picked a stool right by the kitchen, so that I'm a little closer to the action. They were still about 3/4 full at that time - hey not too shabby either.
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| that big ole stock pot in the back is where the magic happens |
A ramen joint, in itself, is a pretty simple operation. Unlike a commercial kitchen doling out dozens of menu items, in a ramen joint, it circles around one central operation, which is the boiling of the broth. If you hadn't noticed, there's always one big pot in some stage of preparation, and one that is on a rolling boiling, where the chef would use to fill up bowls of cooked ramen. All the parts, the noodles, how long they are cooked for, the char shu, and all the fixings, are all precise, so that there's a strict sense of consistency, day in day out. In many ways, that had this down to a science and to those involved it became a craft.
Okay, enough philosophizing and back to business - let's slurp down a bowl of ramen!
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| Shio (sea salt) flavored Ramen with extra Char-Shu (A) |
Their schtick here, is a blended broth of fish and pork, and the shio (sea salt) is the house flavor. Not having done much prior research of the place, this was a nice surprise, as I have had some nice bowls of noodles with blended broth. Both Minca and Kuboya, which have chicken and pork in their broth, proofed to be an equally delicious, yet lighter alternative to the 100% pork-based Tonkotsu broth like Ippudo's. I liked them both very much.
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| char-shu was seared on a hot grill plate |
If mixing chicken and pork was good, then mixing fish and pork was even better. The flavor was clean, with a slight sea weed taste (reminds me of bonito flakes), yet retaining a degree of richness from the pork flavor.
The bowl comes with 2-3 pieces char shu (I ordered extra), whole egg (soft center), bamboo shoots, scallions, nori, and a pinch of a Togarashi-like powder. I liked their char shu - firm, thickly sliced, and grilled. It has a nice flavor and most important, it did not disintegrate into the soup! The caliber of their meat reminds me that of Toto and Naruto, where they would take an extra step to flavor up their char shu. Well done.
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| thick, glassy noodles with a slight crunch in the center |
They also served their broth with my current favorite style of noodles, the ones that are wavy, glassy, cooked slightly al dente, with a nice bounce on the "chew." Theirs were slightly firmer than most and I liked that slight crunch as you bite into them.
Their condiments include black pepper, la-yu (chili oil), chili powder, soy, vinegar. I liked the la-yu, but that dang dispenser was not dripping fast enough....so I defaulted back to the powder, to which I had used to full effect, as customary. There's a reason why I always ended up sweating like a shit head when it comes to eating ramen.
From start to finish, this was a great bowl of wholesomeness. The broth was not overly heavy, and the noodles added a nice crunch. Add on the well executed char shu, for this visit, I am awarding my first "A" to a bowl. Congrats Setagaya!
