Minca

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!