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Menkui Tei – My Love for Ramen

Like I said a long time ago in my post on alphabet city’s ramen joint, Minca, Menkui Tei on 3rd avenue between St. Marks and E. 7th street has a special place in my heart (it’s actually technically Cooper Square). I have been coming here with Thomas since freshman year of college. Located just a little ways from NYU’s jazz building, Menkui Tei offers some great ramen at a much better price than our good friend, the overpriced Ippudo.

So what’s to love here? Pretty much everything. The wait staff is ridiculously nice (they always remember me!) and I love the wooden environment + mix of 90’s hip-hop and pop music. My two favorite ramens that Menkui offers are the Kyushu Ramen and the Sutamina Ramen. The Kyushu Ramen, pictured above, is a “Special Menu” item that happens to always be on the menu – this is a good thing. The Kyushu features sprouts, bamboo, fried garlic, scallions, a half a soft-boiled ehh, and of course – two thick and tasty slices of pork, along with thin noodles in a delicious pork bone broth.

The Sutamina Ramen has a spicy miso-based broth with sliced pork, egg, garlic and scallions. Yum! I need to get a photo of this one because it’s quite wonderful.

Anyway, I love Menkui Tei and you should too! Among pricier places like Ramen Setagaya, Ippudo, and Minca, Menkui Tei is a delicious and affordable contender in the ramen market. They also have a really good mabo tofu and pitcher deals that come with hot wings!

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The Taste of 7th Street

This past weekend Scoop St. organized a two-day event called The Taste of 7th Street featuring some eateries on 7th St between 1st ave and Avenue A: a small sandwich from Porchetta, a lobster roll from Luke’s Lobster, an arepa from Caracas, two cupcakes from Butter Lane, and a smoothie from Xoom - all for $18 dollars. So, it only occurred to me, after looking at Scoop St’s twitter page mentioning that this deal had reached “1000 scoops” that this was going to be a bit of a crazy event. 1000 people got in on this deal? For 5 tiny spots? In only two days? Anyway – let’s hop to it.

On arriving on 7th St, Gao Di and I saw that Caracas had the largest line so we headed over to Porchetta for our first meal. Props to Porchetta for managing to not have a line – they are already the type of place that would be easily prepared for this sort of promotion. We walked in and showed our Scoop St. coupons and were handed our small porchetta sandwiches wrapped in tin foil. Now, I expected the sandwich to be pretty small, considering they would obviously not give you a full sandwich (which I reviewed just the other week), but I sort of assumed we might get a half a sandwich.

What we have here is more like a little Porchetta ball in a tiny bit of bread, but I must admit, this place never disappoints and that ball of pork goodness was still my favorite chomp on 7th st, although the others are quite good too. As usual, succulent delicious pork is mastered at Porchetta.

Next up, we went to Luke’s Lobster to get in on their lobster roll. As per the promotion, the lobster roll was a “snack-sized” portion. This thing was awesome, although small, there was a generous portion of deliciously seasoned and mayo’d lobster on a wonderfully grilled bun. A good combo of hot and cold. I salute you, Luke!

After Luke’s, we thought we’d head over to Caracas right next door. Caracas was swamped. After waiting on line you actually had to give them your name and pick up your order an hour later. We put our name in and headed over to Xoom and Butter Lane to see the situation there. Xoom’s smoothies are amazing and also super filling, we decided to skip that line and grab our smoothies on Sunday. We queued up instead at Butter Lane to get in on these cupcakes. By the time we got our cupcakes it was time to go grab our arepas.

De Pabellón from Caracas is an arepa featuring shredded beef with black beans, ‘white salty cheese,’ and sweet plantains. This was the most substantial of the offerings (and also the most messy!). This thing was really tasty and Caracas’ own yellow/whatever the hell is in there sauce. I was too busy eating this on the side of the street getting my hands dirty to take a better photo. All you need to know is that it’s some saucy goodness and it was yummy.

After stuffing our face full of the arepas we went around the corner to Wechsler’s (having nothing to do with the taste of 7th st) to enjoy a cold Kostritzer, a currywurst and then crack open our cupcakes. I’ll leave Wechsler’s to a separate review. But… the cupcakes.

I have been curious about Butter Lane Cupcakes… this place has cupcakes for three bucks a pop and the price was a bit of a deterrent, so finding that two were included in Scoop St’s deal was an awesome chance to check them out. Honestly, these cupcakes are unreal. These cupcakes are made with some true love and great ingredients. If my memory serves me correctly we got: Vanilla cake with cream cheese icing, chocolate cake with maple pecan icing, banana cake with cinnamon-honey icing, and a chocolate/chocolate cupcake. These are maybe the best cupcakes I’ve had in the city and the icings are sooo good. I think my favorites were the cinammon honey and maple pecan cupcakes. You need to check this place out.

Well that about wraps up The Taste of 7th St. The lines were a bit hectic, but when all is said and done, I left quite satisfied, belly filled with some great foods. What I like about similar deals that I’ve found at Groupon, is that you can use your coupon at any time within a pretty long window. This was organized as a two-day food festival, so I “get it” that you get small helpings and there is a bit of chaos, but while you’re waiting in line your brain starts to dissolve a little bit in anticipation. Anyway – I was pleased and would most definitely do it again. I loved the occasional passersby that had no idea this thing was going on. I heard things like, “All for cupcakes?” and “Oh my god, Caracas’ line is ridiculous let’s get currywurst.”

Below is a photo taken by Cenzo Jester of the line outside Caracas. Peep Gao Di and myself hanging out in the left corner. At the back of the line.

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Baoguette

So I’ve heard a lot of hype about the bánh mì’s found at serial restaurant-opener Michael Hyunh’s Baoguette. We happened upon their East Village location and decided to see if their vietnamese sandwich was any good. We tried their standard bánh mì as it was a good basis for comparison.

This really is pretty much your standard bánh mì and although it’s under the guise of being cheap at $5, it’s still just a bit more expensive than Chinatown spots like Saigon Bakery. That being said, the thing tasted good, with fresh bread and your usual pork, pate, carrots, cilantro, cucumber, sriracha sauce…. but it was a little bit small and unsatisfying.

So, my verdict on the bánh mì found at Baoguette… they’re good! Quite tasty, but I’d only really hop into this place if I was in the area. Cheaper and more satisfying (and arguably better) bánh mìs are to be found in Chinatown.

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Porchetta

Porchetta is an awesome little eatery in the East Village that serves, quite obviously, pork. Porchetta’s menu is small, offering the porchetta sandwich and a mozzarella sandwich (why would you get that here?), soup, a meat platter, some sides, and every now and then a special or two. There’s a lot of hype about this place but don’t let the hype get you down, Porchetta is delicious.

The obvious choice to get is the porchetta sandwich which is simply a healthy portion of pork on a ciabatta roll. At $10 the price is a little steep for such a small and simple sandwich, but the pork makes it well worth it. The pork is so tasty and a little hot sauce (they give you sriracha sauce!) is the perfect complement. Sometimes being really plain yields amazing results, and Porchetta nails it with this amazing sandwich.

This place is tiny and I have seen it quite crowded, but do yourself a favor and get a porchetta sandwich! One time previously they offered a special that was a delicious pork ragu, and although undoubtedly more complex and saucy, the simplicity of the porchetta sandwich still rules my heart.

Porchetta is located at 110 East 7th St. between 1st Ave. and A