Momofuku Noodle Bar & Milk Bar

Having already read David Chang and Peter Meehan's Momofuku cook book from cover to cover, my visit to the Momofuku chain of eateries was the gastronomical highlight of my New York trip.

After a long day out in the City, my friends and I were craving a hot soupy-type of a meal for dinner. Our initial thought was to cook our own bouillabaisse from scratch (what were we thinking? It was already 7pm and we thought we could make seafood stock from scratch?!?!), but after facing facts, we settled on getting some soupy Asian goodness in the form of Momofuku Noodle bar.

Arriving at the Noodle Bar past 9pm, we were told the wait would be an hour. *sigh* I hate waiting for food. However, I was determined to not be deterred by the hour long wait time, so I suggested that we pay the Milk Bar (which was a block or so away from the noodle bar) a visit and do dessert before dinner.

At the Milk Bar, we ordered a Carrot Cake soft serve and a Milk Cereal soft serve. The Carrot Cake soft serve really tasted like well... carrot cake with a hint of the warm spices. But as yummy as the Carrot Cake soft serve was, the Milk Cereal was by far my favorite flavor (they also had Red Velvet (too sweet) and Cream Cheese Frosting (too sweet again, but very authentic!)). The milk cereal reminded me of Horlicks, but obviously a more gourmet version of that. The one thing I will say is that the Milk Bar's soft serves were a little too rich for my liking. I guess I'm used to tart fruit flavors of frozen yogurt and the rich creamy soft serve was a tad overwhelming for my biased taste buds.

At the Milk Bar, we also ordered a Compost cookie made with pretzels, potato chips, coffee, oats, butterscotch and chocolate chips; a Blueberry cookie with dried blueberries and milk crumbs; and Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow cookie. The Blueberry cookie and the Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow cookie were good cookies, but nothing too extraordinary. The Compost cookie on the other hand, I have to take my hat off to. The saltiness of the potato chips and pretzels really played well with the sweetness of the chocolate chips. Meanwhile, the coffee grinds really were a spectacular and genius addition to the cookie, adding the right amount of smokiness to the flavor profile.

After pigging out on desserts, we headed back to the Noodle bar for our main meal. I have to first add that the hostess at the Noodle bar was exceptionally rude and grumpy with my friends and I. Trust me, we did nothing to deserve that treatment. But I was having such a good time with my friends that a grump-butt did nothing to spoil my mood.

Because we were at Momofuku, there was no way we could visit and not get the steamed pork buns. Even though Momofuku is sort of famous for their steamed pork buns, I did not have very high expectations of them. After all, the momofuku steam buns are not exactly an original idea, but just their version of a pretty common Asian food formula: steam buns + delicious meat = Mm-mm-good. The steam buns or mantous were lovely but for some reason, the pork belly seemed to be missing the unctuous, fall-off-the-bone lusciousness that I expected. However, I will say that the pickled cucumbers added a fresh snap to the steamed pork buns.

My friends and I also split an order of smoked chicken wings with pickled chili, garlic and scallions. While I appreciate that the process of making these smoked chicken wings is not exactly a throw-in-a-pan-and-fry type situation, I don't think these were particularly special. My favorite thing on this plate were the pickled chili- apparently I am a fan of the pickling process at Momofuku.

And lastly, for my main dish, I ordered the Momofuku ramen aka the whole reason we went to Momofuku Noodle Bar in the first place. A typical ramen usually consist of broth, noodles, meat, toppings and garnishes. Momofuku's ramen was no different, with pork belly, pork shoulder, a poached egg, bamboo shoots or menma, naruto or fishcakes and nori.

To me, what makes a kick ass bowl of ramen is the broth. It needs to be served at the right temperature (right under boiling), with the right amount of tare for depth, salt for roundness and mirin for sweetness. Unfortunately, the ramen broth at momofuku was a little too salty for me. I blame their addition of bacon to the usual pig bones and seaweed combination for this unnecessary saltiness.

Because ramen usually comes with a hard-boiled egg, I will give Momofuku's ramen bonus points for their poached egg. It was lovely to poke the egg with my chopsticks and watch as the yolk ozzed out into the broth. MMmmmm...

Despite the all too salty broth, Momofuku's Ramen was still rather tasty and comforting. However, nothing beats the original ramen roadside stands in Fukoka, Japan; where you are served steaming bowls of ramen noodles after a night out of partying. Ahhhh... good memories.

Details:
Momofuku Milk Bar
207 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10003

Momofuku Noodle Bar
171 1st Avenue
New York, NY 10003