Midtown ramen: east vs. west

Next up in the ramen tour was a toss up between two spots on opposite sides of 52nd Street. Apropos of this I recall my very first visit to New York and how excited I was to see W 52nd St, the location of all the classic bebop night clubs during the late 30's and early 40's. Imagine the disappointment in finding that there is absolutely no remnant of that scene in that street today (save I think a tiny placard mentioning Dizzy Gillespie). So far all the noodles have been from the East Village, so I was curious how midtown would fare (assuming they primarily cater to midtown workers' lunch).

We hopped on the subway over to the west side first, to find Totto Ramen (W52nd btwn 8th & 9th) to be greeted by this:

Literally a crush at the door!

We signed our name on the list at the front, noting that there were a good number of people ahead of us. After hemming and hawing and stalling for a few minutes, we realized that if we committed to waiting here we may not make it the Jazz Standard in time for our 11:30 reservation to see Maria Schneider (post to follow). A quick phone call to information, and an executive decision was made to jump in a cab crosstown to Hide-chan (E 52nd at 2nd ave). Within minutes we were warmly welcomed and seated. Although I've still been craving the thick wavy noodles typical of miso ramen, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try the unique sounding kuroramen (black ramen). The "kuro" comes from the black sesame and garlic oil that they top the bowl with, and it's really black.

Hide-chan's Kuroramen

The sesame garlic gave a very warm dark nuttiness to the broth, which was flavourful but otherwise light. The thin hakata style noodles were just al dente enough to give some bite, and made me forget my craving for the thick wavy kind. However, there just weren't enough noodles in my bowl (although there was generous soup) and a kaedama (second helping of noodles) was in order. With the extra noodles it was exactly the right balance. A very enjoyable meal.

I do have to mention that although we were greeted very warmly (and in Japanese, which is a good sign since it means they get mostly Japanese customers), by the time we were finishing up our meals I got a lot of strange stares from the staff as they walked by our table, as if to try and hurry us out the door. The room was barely a third full, so it's not like they needed the space. But we were a table of two without getting drinks, so maybe they wrote us off as a cheap waste of time. Just wondering.

After that, we split for Maria Schneider, I'll post about this next!