After four unsuccessful attempts, we finally staked our ground and waited over an hour for a table at Ippudo. In the past, we were just too hungry to wait. For those in the know, Ippudo is a well-known chain for ramen in Japan and recently, they opened up their first branch overseas in New York's East Village. If you have ever had ramen in Japan, you'll know that the soup base is an art-form, boiling pork bones for 24 hours to produce that rich, silky-smooth concoction. Noodles are hand-made. At Ippudo, the ramen did not disappoint and neither did the appetizers especially the pork bun - beautiful slab of Berkshire pork wrapped in lettuce, mayo and fluffy mantou. Apologies for the picture - we gobbled one of those down before we remembered to take a photo! The chicken wings were good too - marinaded in a honey-sesame and black pepper sauce. We also had the seared scallop appetizer with shiso leaf and ponzu sauce - nice but with the small portion size - expensive. We ordered the standard ramen plus the special - with ankimo (monkfish liver) pate and garlic toasts in the tonkatsu pork broth.
