Since I landed in Chicago, I’ve been seriously craving sushi. I had sushi with my college roommates the first night I got here (some place in Evanston that was pretty good) and I made reservations for Kaze Sushi for Wednesday night with another friend. We were deciding between two sushi restaurants but people said Kaze Sushi was some of the best sushi they’d had in Chicago, so my friend and I decided to go to Kaze. We arrived a bit early (around 6pm) and the restaurant was completely empty. After being seated and looking through our menus, our waiter gave us a rundown of all of the specials and things that are really great on the menu. I decided to order the duck entree and six different types of rolls. The duck entree was brought out first:

The duck was surprisingly tender and well cooked in a white wine reduction with apples and raisins. At first I was a little iffy on the sauce because I’m not a fan of raisins in food, but then I realized it was actually really delicious with the duck (I even ate the sauce after the duck was finished!). The tempura shiitake mushrooms reminded me of carnival fries (same oily smell and a little tastier) and the sweet potato fries on top of the duck were crunchy but good. The boiled spinach was cold on one side and slightly warm on the other (the duck was keeping it warm), but overall, the dish wasn’t very hot/felt like it sat out a while before it was brought over to us. There were too many different temperatures in the food that it was kind of hard to stomach. My friend (who shall not be named for privacy reasons), was finishing up the meal when he thought he ate a hard piece of duck, but when he took it out of his mouth, he saw that it was a broken piece of plastic! Isn’t that absolutely TERRIBLE?!

After we alerted our waiter and he profusely apologized, he brought out our rolls - 6 different types of rolls including a dragon roll with salmon, a shrimp tempura roll, a negi hamachi roll, a spicy tuna roll, a spicy salmon roll, and a spicy tuna eel roll. Here’s a picture of three of the rolls:

And the other three:

My biggest complaint, which I mention in the video review, is that there isn’t enough fish in any of the rolls! The hamachi roll had TINY TINY pieces of hamachi (I couldn’t even call it a hamachi roll, I’d call it a ROLL OF RICE). I also had to send back the soft shell crab with salmon because the salmon was seriously rubbery and couldn’t be chewed through. The other rolls were fairly decent, except the shrimp tempura had too much batter on it and I could only taste the tempura, not the shrimp.

For dessert, we decided to share the black sesame flan:

My first question - why is black sesame flan GREEN?! Second question - why does it look like there are spider babies on the plate?! The flan tasted more like peanut butter than black sesame and was very creamy (as a random side note, my mom sometimes mixes black sesame with almonds and soybeans to make soy milk - it’s quite delicious if you drink it cold).

Kazi Sushi had a great open space and lively atmosphere, but it couldn’t make up for the sub-par food.

My video review:

Kaze Sushi Review from Grace Yang on Vimeo.

Our quest for a good bowl of ramen continues. The last time I posted, we had just visited Ramen Setagaya, where we actually go to quite often. We’ve found another place, Ippudo, (which is absolutely amazing), but that post will be saved for later in the week. To get to the Minca story, I have to write about my new obsession with riding the bus. I started riding the bus because of the L outages during the weekends. Slowly, the M14 has become my best friend - it goes with me to the grocery store, to Chris’ house, to the gym, and surprisingly, to a lot of cool restaurants in the east village. On Saturday, we hopped on the M14 bus by Chris’ house and headed to Minca. The bus dropped us off practically in front of the restaurant (it was a 45 minute ride - sheeks!), and we headed in to order some gyoza and ramen. We started off with the pork gyoza:

The pork gyoza at Minca was actually better than the gyoza I’ve had at Ramen Setagaya, but I still don’t like the thin skin from gyoza’s and prefer Chinese dumplings.

There are a lot of options for ramen, but I decided on the Minca Ramen:

The ramen comes with a tea egg, which is a hard-boiled egg that’s cooked with soy sauce and other spices (quite easy to make and they’re very good since they already have a lot of flavor). The broth was very hearty and much thicker than other broth’s I’ve tasted in the city. Also, the pork Minca served had the most meat and least amount of fat; the pork was very flavorful and not overly salty. I really enjoyed the noodles as well:

The noodles are handmade and are flash cooked and perfectly chewy.

Chris ordered a different type of ramen with chicken instead of pork:

His broth wasn’t as hearty or tasty, but his chicken was very flavorful. Chris didn’t like the broth, but enjoyed the chicken and noodles.

So, it seems like we had a good experience at Minca, but about halfway through the meal, Chris mentioned that the broths were both very salty. At first I told him that he was trying to ruin my perfect ramen experience, but then I realized that I was drinking a lot more water than usual. By the end of the meal, I was completely dehydrated and needed several refills of my water before I was able to walk out of the restaurant. The broth I had was really good (better than Ramen Setagaya’s, I think), but it was just too salty and I probably shouldn’t have had all of it.

Tip: If you’re ever in the mood to eat by yourself, head to Minca - they have a bar area that’s perfect for one!

How to get to Minca:

Minca
536 E. 5th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B
New York, NY 10009
212-505-8001

I’m always on the lookout for great noodles. We LOVE ramen, udon, and soba, so we decided to check out Sobaya for some noodley goodness. The interior is small but neat and we decided to sit at the counter for dinner. The menu doesn’t have that many options, but you can choose the type of protein you want (duck, shrimp, tofu skin, etc) and the noodle (either soba or udon). Their soba and udon are both handmade and fresh, so we decided to do one of each - I ordered the duck with udon and Chris went with the tempura with soba.

My duck with udon:

The udon was very chewy, but the broth and the duck didn’t taste right (there’s orange zest in the broth, which totally threw me off). The duck also had a lot of fat, and was tough and hard to chew.

Chris’ tempura with soba:

Chris’ tempura shrimp was tasty, but his soba noodles weren’t that good. They were a little overcooked (at least I thought they were).

If we could do it again, I would’ve paired the tempura with udon and the duck with soba, although I think I’d pick a different protein since I didn’t like the duck broth with orange zest. Sobaya has a good deal for lunch (a huge lunchbox for $15 filled with lots of goodies), but they don’t serve it for dinner, so we were out of luck.

Tip: get there early because it gets crazy around dinner time. You might end up waiting up to an hour for a bowl of homemade noodles on any given night!

How to get to Sobaya:

Sobaya
229 E 9th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue
New York, NY 10003
212-533-6966

Unlike Chinese food and Korean food, Japanese food can’t be found in a small neighborhood or street in Manhattan; it’s found on little side streets in midtown, inside grocery stores, or if you’re in the mood for disappointing small eats, in Astor place. Ennju, a small eatery near union square, serves Japanese food in a cafeteria style setting for nearby office worker bees and NYU students. I’m a fan of the place and have been going to ennju since I moved to New York. They offer cooked items (beef curry, pork cutlets, soups, etc) as well as sushi, salads, edamame, and other Japanese treats. I always end up ordering the same thing - curry with a pork cutlet:

The good thing about Ennju is that their curry already has beef inside (well, not good for vegetarians, but good for meat eaters like myself). The bad thing about having beef included: I ALWAYS forget there’s already meat in the curry so I end up ordering a pork cutlet on the side (which means double meat!!). Ennju is fast, convenient (especially after a Saturday filled with reading books at the Union Square Barnes and Noble), and they give you salads with your curry order. Another perk: half-off sushi an hour before closing!

How to get to Ennju:

Ennju
20 E 17th Street between 5th Ave & Broadway
New York, NY 10003
646-336-7004

Winter has officially arrived in New York City. I want to go into hibernation mode and sleep in my comfy bed and never deal with New York snow! Don’t worry, I’m not going stay in my apartment and sleep all winter - I’m just going to find more savory soups to keep me warm and toasty! On a recent field trip for soup, Chris and I stopped by Ramen Setagaya, a small shop in the East Village to enjoy some of their hot soup.

Ramen is a big deal in New York; I mean, why do people pay $10 for stuff they can get in the supermarket for 0.95? I ordered the ramen with pork and Chris went with the special - a bowl of ramen with pork and a side order of gyoza, hoping it was worth the $10 we just forked over:

The broth had a distinct seafood taste and was salted perfectly and the ramen noodles tasted like they were dipped in hot water and finished cooking when placed in the broth. Perfect! I love ramen when it’s slightly cooked so you get a good bite to the noodle. Chris ordered the same soup and wasn’t impressed with the seafood flavor - he wanted something with a heartier broth. The pork was good, not great, and I think the ramen would’ve been better with some shrimp or prawns to echo the seafood broth.

For an extra $1.50, you can add gyoza to your order to make it a combo. Chris added the gyoza since I only wanted one or two. Chris’ gyoza:

The skin of gyoza is too thin for me and I prefer mandoo or the Chinese equivalent. Chris thought the gyoza at Ramen Setagaya were pretty well done and liked the meat filling (I think they just pan fried freezer section dumplings).

I’ll stop by Ramen Setagaya again if I’m ever in the neighborhood to warm up with a nice bowl of HOT ramen!

How to get to Ramen Setagaya:

Raen Setagaya
141 1st Ave between 9th St. and St. Marks Pl
New York, NY 10009
212-529-2740