Momofuku Ssam Bar (East Village, New York)

On Christmas Eve last year, it was our first day in New York City, after arriving the evening before. We traipsed around in the rain and around lunch time we started racking our brains for food ideas! Lo and behold we decided to head to one of David Chang's restaurants and this time we decided to go to the Ssam Bar. The last time I was in New York, I went to the Momofuku Noodle Bar so I was only to happy to check out the Ssam Bar! Yay!

Our timing was perfect, there was a table of 3 waiting for us. Not long after we walked in, the rest of the place was filled with diners!

We started with the very famous "Steamed Buns with Pork Belly" with hoisin sauce, cucumbers, scallions and a dash of sriracha. It was still as good as the first time I had them in June 2013 and I could have had more. The pork belly was so tender, and succulent. More please! That's what JN said anyway! :)

GK had the Rotisserie duck over rice with 'the lot'. This amounted to a plate full of duck scallion, ssam sauce, crispy shallot, lettuce, chive pancake, and pickles. The duck was perfectly cooked and let's just say GK was enjoying his dish at a leisurely pace. I couldn't help myself from eyeing the duck on his plate. They looked so succulent!

Ippudo Sydney (CBD)

Yes, once again this is another place I have yet to check out until now! What is the matter with me? Well, my only defence is, there are so many places to check out in Sydney and sometimes it takes longer to get to one place. :)

Believe it or not, it has taken about 2 months of talking about Ippudo to finally actually eat there. My friend DD and I have been planning to take a lunch break there for the past 2 months but we haven't been successful in finding the right time to do this. Sheer frustration and quite laughable actually! Work gets crazy busy and sometimes there is no time for a decent lunch break.

But we did it one fine day! And to top it off, I decided to add another lunch visit to try out different things on the menu.

Ippudo Sydney as I am sure all of you in Sydney would know is located in Westfield Sydney. It opened in December 2012 and is still going strong. In the past year there has been an absolute boom for all things ramen and I believe this food empire opened in Sydney at the right time.

For lunch we decided to have their signature Ippudo pork bun which was soft, fluffy pillow-like buns filled with braised pork and the Ippudo original sauce. Their sauce is mayo based and was light and creamy. I could have popped a few of this in!

I had the Shiromaru Tamago which was the original tonkotsu broth served with thin noodles, pork loin, bean sprouts, black mushroom, flavoured egg and shallots. This is the hakata style of ramen broth.

DD had the Karaka Men Tamago which was the original tonkotsu broth, with special spicy miso, ground pork and flavoured egg.

Ramen Noodle Bars (New York City)

I thought I would attempt to do a series on Ramen Noodles while in New York. My original plan was to hit Momofuku Noodle Bar, Totto Ramen and Ippudo New York but due to lack of available time I could only check out the first two but I think this is enough to make a good comparison.

Momofuku Noodle Bar
I had to check out David Chang's Noodle Bar. Even though it was a hot hot day in Manhattan and after walking about 3 miles from Soho to East Village, it really wasn't appropriate weather to have a hot bowl of ramen but I persevered. By arriving quite late in the lunchtime session, I managed to get a seat at the counter rather quickly.

My order was:

Fresh Ginger Ale - I loved this drink. It really had a great ginger flavour and if I could take a carton of it home I would!

Pork buns with hoisin, scallion and cucumber. This dish was the highlight as far as I am concerned. The pork was so tender and literally melting in my mouth. The savouriness of the hoisin sauce together with the crunchiness of the cucumber slices offset the tender pork beautifully. I now understand why everyone raves about these pork buns.