Sanpoutei Gyoza & Ramen

JAPAN 🇯🇵

With its polished new place on 2nd Avenue, it would be hard to imagine the 50 years plus history that Sanpoutei has under its belt. Hailing from the Niigata prefecture, the restaurant group includes almost 50 locations. Most of these are ramen, but they also have Italian, Chinese, and Shanghainese places, the influences of which you will see shine through on the menu here as well.

This is the first location in the United States and the second in North America following Vancouver. The shop presents itself as a thin restaurant with bar counter seating in the front, but the back opens up into the neighboring space and offers a decent amount of tables.

A wide range of sake from Niigata is available.

This visit was during their fourth night of business, and while the staff was understandably not 100% certain on every little detail, things were running pretty smoothly. Many groups of Japanese people were the main clientele, as the restaurant must have been making quite an impact in local Japanese press.

Niigata city is almost due north of Tokyo but sits on the west coast of Honshu. The prefecture it lives in of the same name is thin and hugs the coast, the sea is very important here.

Having enough people that one plate of gyoza would have been insufficient, two of the three options were ordered, including the Sanpoutei gyoza ($10, above). These are pan-fried pork gyoza, served with a very simple but somehow wonderful vinegar soy dipping sauce. The tastes are familiar, but for a place half-known for gyoza these do not disappoint. The next visit might have to include an entire plate of these for the greediest amongst the group as they are a delight.

The prawn & edamame crispy gyoza ($13, below) were also a hit. These are deep fried as might be guessed by the crispy part of the name, and the use of black tiger prawns is the first hint of the importance of seafood to Niigata.

They are served with an excellent cold and crisp oroshi ponzu that is full of citrus and thickened with daikon. The server almost lost a finger when he tried to remove the dipping sauce from the table after the gyoza were finished.

If there was one disappointment of the meal, it would be the Sanpoutei fried chicken ($16 for six pieces, below), which are rubbed with a curry powder and soy sauce before frying. The chicken was fine enough, but two of the pieces were tiny, and the rub creation just did not do anything. A simple karaage would have been appreciated much more.

The raspberries provide a cool freshness.

Based on the five types of ramen ordered this evening, sticking to the top of the menu and their house special shoyu (soy sauce based) is the way to go. There are at least eight components to the Sanpoutei niboshi shoyu ramen ($16, below), but the bowl is light and simple, the vegetable and meat ingredients ample enough but not distracting from the soup and noodles.

Niboshi refers to the dried sardines that go into the ramen stock, a funkiness that is light and so pleasant. This bowl also includes both cha-shu and roasted pork, both of which are some of the best cooked in town. An extra order of cha-shu for $3 will probably not make a bad decision. Onions, green beans, and bamboo shoot round out the bowl with a bit of crispness.

It appeared that each different ramen was using the same thick housemade noodles here, wavy and containing a great chew. (Apologies for the lack of noodle photo). Another good offer is that each bowl is available in a small size for $4 less, a choice that those usually having a hard time finishing will appreciate.

It is rare to find a place excelling at both typical soup ramen and tsukemen dipping ramen, but this was not the case with their very strong spicy cha-shu tsukemen ($18, below, shown with extra seasoned egg and cha-shu orders).

Tsukemen involves chilled noodles and a very hot bowl of dipping broth, here made with plenty of richness and bite. Midway through someone should come around and refill the bowl with more hot broth, which did not happen, but it must be assumed they will iron out this kink as well.

For more spice, the spicy miso ramen ($14 small version, below) can be ordered. This is available in a non-spicy bowl as well, but both were found to be a bit too thick, almost like the tsukemen. Served with kale and bell peppers, it almost has the feel of an afterthought and trying to beef up the menu rather than focus on their strengths. For now, shoyu tops miso for sure.

The most outstanding appetizer, pulled to the bottom here so that a bit more space could be devoted to it, is the Niigata sake drunken chicken ($13, below two photos). This is a modern riff on the drunken chicken popularized from Zhejiang province in China, just south of Shanghai.

Instead of Shaoxing rice wine, they of course substitute Niigata sake here to cook the chicken with. Surrounded by crisp cucumbers and topped with sesame, the chicken rests in a shallow pool of ginjo sake sauce and has the nice zip of Korean chilli powder in every bite. Despite the winter weather, the dining room was quite warm and this provided such a pleasant refreshment.

Niigate sake drunken chicken with cucumber.

Two rice bowls are available for those not in the mood for noodles, one of which was used as another way to split an appetizer. Shown here is the roasted pork cha-shu don ($11, below), more slices of their great pork over a ball of white rice.

Topped with a wasabi soy sauce, be sure to mix this and the small egg yolk thoroughly before digging in.

Two flans make up the dessert menu for now. The mango flan ($6, below left) is workable and fine, topped with smooth and fresh whipped cream, but the better order is definitely the Kurogoma flan ($6, below, right). This is made with black sesame and topped with kuromitsu, a sugar syrup that translates to "black honey."

For now it seems that New York City will remain a destination for Japanese-based restaurants looking to expand their market, as places like Sanpoutei seem to be opening quite often. This one definitely stands near the top of the pack though, and is worth visiting.

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EAST VILLAGE Manhattan

92 2nd Avenue

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Goemon Curry

JAPAN 🇯🇵

With so much love for and so many return visits to Cocoron Soba next door over the years, it was actually quite amazing that it took so long to finally try Goemon Curry, an offshoot from the same group. What looks like a large restaurant from the street is actually just a tiny sliver of a place that has barely any depth. Customers sit at a few shared tables often requiring a wait, but single diners can usually find a spot at one of the counter seats at the window.

Eating alone especially makes the restaurant feel a little like Tokyo, with polite jostling constant, good spirits and smells. Just don't look in the direction of any trash piled up on the street, or maybe just close your eyes completely.

Despite having the same ownership, Goemon ended up impressing even more than expected and it is a shame to have wasted over four years not coming here for their various curries. Now it will just be an internal fight each time to choose the orange or the black entrance, soba or curry.

Whether sharing this meal with friends or not, start out with the renkon chips ($5, above), which will not fill you up before the curry. These very thinly sliced pieces of lotus root are ultra-crispy and have a deeply satisfying crunch. The saltiness is pleasantly low, leaving room for an uptick in flavors later in the meal.

Goemon believes in umami, the deep flavors created with dashi, so it might be natural to start with their standard bearer premium classic curry ($14.50 for small order, above), which can be served with potatoes and carrots for $1 more. The slices of chicken katsu at the back are a very worthy $4 upgrade. The standard Japanese white rice goes better than the multigrain rice they offer, especially with the classic which is made from a roux of chicken and beef.

Their menu goes on to start insulting Indian curries for some reason, insinuating that they are too oily and without depth. This seems to be unnecessary, as thankfully the world has a place for both. Certainly there is a lot of room to compare and contrast the different styles, but degrading another culture's food is not the way.

In the progression of curry evolution, the next step will be mama's taste IE KEI curry ($14 for large order, above). This roux still uses chicken but pork replaces the flavors of beef and the liquid is more creamy. Slices of meat populate the plate, while the menu says "Very decent taste you want to eat occasionally." This is an undersell, as the style is fantastic and warrants more than occasional enjoyment.

For the maximization of flavor and the final step in your curry evolution, turn to the yakuzen soup curry section of the menu. Yakuzen is usually a type of cooking associated with a very healthy lifestyle and often with only vegetables, but the latter part of that formula is not the case here. The broth contains chicken, bonito fish-based stock, turmeric, and a claim of 16 spices that are inspired by Sri Lankan curries. Apparently they waffle on their praise for South Asian cuisines.

The yakuzen soup curry with pork ($19 for small order) was the kind of dish that makes you look around and furl your eyebrows in disbelief at your friends after tasting. It really picks up and enhances the cuts of pork belly, if that is even possible. It will be hard not to revert to this dish on future visits, even when craving the curry and rice standards.

Finish off with a thick slice of black sesame cheesecake ($7.50, below), which on this occasion was practically inhaled by a group of three. While both delicious components, the cheesecake and crust weirdly do not go well together, the dish is better deconstructed and enjoyed in separate bites.

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NOLITA Manhattan

29 Kenmare Street

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Hokkaido Ramen Santouka

JAPAN 🇯🇵

The first ever shop of this Hokkaido-based ramen chain was opened in 1988 in Asahikawa near the base of Mount Asahi, but the story begins a few years prior to that. The founder had been inspired by the 1985 film Tampopo, a comedy that was all about ramen, and felt that the options he and his family had available were not good enough.

Nowadays the company is located throughout Japan and even has a branch on tiny Okinawa. Its expansion to seven other countries in Asia and onto North America just seems natural. In the United States, many of the branches are located inside of Mitsuwa Marketplaces, like the one here in Edgewater, New Jersey.

They do have other offerings, but the original and unique offering of Santouka is the tokusen toroniku ramen ($12.50 for small, below), a bowl of the shio (salt) ramen in white tonkotsu soup with toppings served on the side. This is the classic and what they promise will be mild and perfect, not too salty even to the last slurp.

In that side dish are six slices of perfectly cooked fatty pork cheek meat to supplement the pork bone broth, along with bamboo shoots, chopped green onion, and red pickled plum. This can be added as desired piece by piece or all at the beginning.

Not shown well here, but also of note is the story of Santouka's custom bowl, or donburi. They use a thick porcelain that retains the heat of the soup and are always a pleasing blue color with white rim. No matter where you eat Santouka in the world, the bowl will always be the same.

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EDGEWATER New Jersey
595 River Road

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Menya Jiro

JAPAN 🇯🇵

If you get in a time machine and set it for just ten years ago, ramen had already taken hold in New York City and was very good. Restaurants in Midtown, some even with special post-midnight bowls of noodles, were already giving the city a good name. Many Japanese establishments grouped themselves fairly closely on the east side, not tight enough for a "Little Tokyo" to form, but they effectively served the Japanese-based businesses in Midtown as well as the United Nations.

Especially in the last five years, many chains from Japan have taken notice of how well Ippudo has done as well as all the other ramen shops across town, and began expanding their business to New York City. Good ramen can now be found all over Manhattan, but also in unexpected spots in Brooklyn, Queens, and New Jersey. So far this flooding of the market has not reached a problem level as demand seems high and people start expecting more from their bowls.

Menya Jiro, a Japanese chain that has arrived in the city less than two years ago after five locations back home, offers ramen originating in Kagoshima on the island of Kyushu. Kyushu's more northern city of Fukuoka is known as the birthplace of tonkotsu ramen, the regional specialty that Menya Jiro also offers. Their special Kagoshima ramen ($16, above and below) is a bowl using traditional methods of pork-based tonkotsu with the addition of chicken broth as well.

The city has taken to their specialty quite rapidly, before opening they competed in (and won) a series of ramen contests and operated pop-up events here and in Greenport, Long Island. These helped make the decision to seek a more permanent space to offer their Kagoshima ramen.

The brand has promptly expanded from their first overseas branch in east Midtown to the Financial District and now here to Downtown Brooklyn for a third location.

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DOWNTOWN Brooklyn
306 Gold Street

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Ramen Danbo

JAPAN 🇯🇵

Before coming to North America, Ramen Danbo has expanded since their earliest shop in 2000 to over 20 spots all over Japan. Their first location, about 16 kilometers southeast of Fukuoka, the epicenter of tonkotsu ramen style, received much praise and allowed them to become a chain and expand towards growing demands in other cities.

They were also a hit when they came to Vancouver and then Seattle, and now have decided to test their fortunes in the New York City market in... *checks notes*... Park Slope? In a spot that already went through two very forgettable ramen makeovers, Danbo has come in to put all this change to bed for good, we can hope.

The first meal here started off auspiciously as an older Japanese man was placing multiple orders for gyoza to go after finishing his bowl of ramen. Something tells you he had enjoyed his soup.

In its simplest form, this ramen is about the Kyushu Hakata style, one of Japan's most popular and not simple at all. They still import the ramen-dare soup base from Japan and boil pork bones at high heat to create their flavor profiles.

The signature classic ramen ($10.45, above) is broth, noodles, chashu, scallions, and a dollop of their homemade "top secret" spicy tare sauce. The appearance of simplicity is disproved by the complexity of the broth.

Ramen Danbo also seems proud of their offer to customize your preferences in each bowl, with the availability of harder or softer than "standard" noodles and even thicker noodles instead of their "classic" thin version. Noodle science is very important in Japan, and to my knowledge the thin noodles seem too intertwined for this style of ramen, so the bowls were not customized in any way. It is also possible to level up your spiciness with added ichimi togarashi red pepper powder.

This was done with the next bowl, the negi-goma rekka ramen ($12.95, above). Negi-goma ramen adds two sesame components to the tonkotsu pork broth base, a white sesame oil and roasted sesame seeds which cover about half of the bowl when it arrives. For sesame lovers, this is a unique upgrade and worth tasting, the flavors mesh well and enhance each other.

On a return visit, a bowl of miso ramen with extra chashu.

It is an easy walk from the 7th Avenue Q train station, with only a few blocks (and approximately 25 strollers to avoid) on your way to ramen bliss. Help welcome Danbo to the city and see for yourself!

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PARK SLOPE Brooklyn
52 7th Avenue

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EN Japanese Brasserie

JAPAN 🇯🇵

A few visuals from a recent splurge at EN Japanese Brasserie in the West Village.

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WEST VILLAGE Manhattan
435 Hudson Street

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