Located on 1st Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets, the restaurant is currently masked in scaffolding, making it hard to spot unless you’re looking for it. Thanks to my fancy new phone, the place was rather easy for me to find.
Now before I talk about the food I would like to reluctantly admit that I ordered the same exact thing both times I have visited, going completely against my desire to try new things. The reason I did this was because my first visit was so genuinely satisfying, that I badly craved the two specific dishes I had originally had.
To start my meal I ordered the steamed pork buns, a dish I have seen gather numerous rave reviews, and for good reason.
Steamed buns are a difficult thing to describe if you’ve never tried one before. The texture resembles the inside of freshly baked bread, although since they are steamed, the exterior of the bun takes on no color and does not become tough or crusty. It’s simply a pillowly soft pocket of light and airy bread, the perfect canvas for a seemingly endless list of ingredients.
The oval-shaped buns are spread with a light coating of a soy-based sauce, and then assembled with thin slices of crisp cucumber, two thick slices of deliciously fatty pork, and small rings of scallion. Being someone who loves spicy food, I liberally doused my buns in sriracha (that sounds wrong), a chili sauce that packs quite a punch. If you can handle the heat, follow my lead as the sriracha adds just enough acid to cut through the intensely rich pork fat.
For my next course I ordered the chicken ramen for the second time.
As you can clearly tell, the pork buns are totally unnecessary, as the size of the chicken ramen is enough to fill up the hungriest diner. Served is a rich broth with a good amount of ramen noodles, flavorful dark-meat chicken, bamboo shoots, scallion rings, and a sheet of Nori. (I also added my usual dosage of sriracha.) The addition of the chili sauce makes my face sweat while I eat, one of my favorite side effects of spicy meals.
My favorite part of the noodle bowl is that the mound of carved chicken meat is added at the last moment, allowing the skin to remain incredibly crispy despite being submerged in the broth. I also love that it is not only accepted, but encouraged to loudly slurp your seemingly endless noodles as you eat (Having to clean errant drops of broth off of my glasses at the end of the meal is fantastic). Biting off noodles mid-slurp is bad technique. After my minimal practice, I have started to master the technique of guiding the noodles with my chopsticks, helping to minimize the mess.
Both times I have left Momofuku Noodle, I have been entirely satisfied and already looking forward to my next visit. The rest of the menu looks equally as good, and I hope that on my third trip to the restaurant my cravings subside, allowing me to explore the menu a little more.
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