BEST Japanese Ramen Noodles in New York! MUST TRY Ramen Tour Part 3!

I want to dunk my head in here. Hey guys, it's Mike Chen. I've been away from Japan for way too long now, and I just miss it. I mean, I miss the people, I miss the culture, the food. So I figure we're long overdue for another ramen tour of New York City. And this time I'm gonna take you to a couple of delicious gems I found since the last ramen tour, and we're gonna go try a couple places I've never been to or heard good things about. Ready? Let's go on a ramen tour. This is a place I accidentally stumbled upon, I think a month back when I was having a really bad night. It was raining, it was cold. Bowl of noodles here made it all go away. Made me feel so much better. And last time I had the braised pork belly bun, I had the gyoza. Amazing stuff. And I had the spicy tonkatsu. That thing healed my soul that night. And also I want to try their kakuni don, which is supposed to be amazing. Braised pork, soft-boiled eggs, all words I love. Let's get this adventure started. This is the kakuni bun. Spicy mayo, Japanese barbecue sauce, sitting on a couple pieces of cucumber, a little bit of green onions. Just melt in your mouth pork belly. Open up. Take a good look at you. I feel like I'm the pork bun dentist right now. Pork belly inside, oozing with juice. So, so soft. I was sitting on this very sleeping bag of a bun. I missed you. To me, this is a must-get when you come here. The bun is so light, subtle sweetness to it. And as soon as you break through that fluffy ginger layer, your mouth is just gonna be consumed by the aromatic pork and the crunch of the cucumbers. Everything, it's a balance, you know. The pork is not too fatty. It's got a nice heat from the spicy mayo, slight bit of creaminess. Any juice that's leaking from the pork during your first bite, and trust me, juice, if it be a leaking, it's all gonna be caught right here. Making this bottom part, that's the best bite right there. Next up, you gotta check out the gyoza. Flat gyoza, perfectly toasted on one side, delightfully tender on the other. They also have their own hot oil. Take some of that, put it inside the dumpling sauce, take it for a swim. I just like to one bite these things. I almost love the crunchy, tender outer wrapper as much as I love the delicious pork filling on the inside. Look how thin the wrappers are. I mean, these gyozas are definitely dressed for the summer. I'm ready for the main event. Get some ramen up in here. If you don't take one look at this and automatically start salivating, I really don't know if we can be friends. The thing that kind of sets this apart, first impression-wise, and all the other ramen places I've been to, is these two slabs of bacon. That basically measures the entire bowl across. Mushrooms, scallions, melty eggs, seaweed, shredded peppers, noodles, all sitting in just this lava looking bowl of broth. It cooked to absolute runny perfection. Guys, you might need some food in front of you before I show you this. Pork belly, of course. Fatty part, lean parts, and every part. It's just so, so soft. I mean, just this alone will make you fall in love with this bowl of ramen. Besides the runny egg and the melty bacon, perfectly cooked, curvy ramen noodles soaked in this just glorious, radiant bowl of broth. Look at this. The egg is like floating in a spicy bowl of broth. It's like an eggy lifeboat. And of course, they give you this massive spoon for the broth, and just right there. I mean, that is a rich, luscious broth. And if memory serves me right, this thing will work better on you than a four-hour massage. I kind of just want to swish that baby around my mouth with my tongue. Kind of like what I would do with just super silky chocolate. This is one of those foods that, after you take a bite, all your problems in the world just fades away for the next five to ten seconds. I gotta caution, though. We are eating a noodle dish, so I gotta pride myself because I am a messy eater. Next bite. Let's invite the chashu to the par-tay. What's so great about this chashu is that, besides all that smoky flavor you get, it has all sorts of different textures. There's the chewy parts, the slightly charred parts, and my favorite, the uber melty parts. I mean, that's like the classic theme of this ramen. This whole thing essentially melts, and I haven't even got to the egg yet. Take the egg. I use it as a little serving vessel. Put some broth in that baby. Add a tiny bit of the hot oil in here. That was so gentle, I almost put my tongue to sleep. And we're getting to the bottom, guys. That's the best part, because you know what? No treasure hunter ever searched the surface of the ocean for gold. All that good stuff, that's all at the bottom. When I get to the stage of the ramen feast, I'm a little sad because the noodles are gone, big pieces of chashu's gone, but I'm also really happy because slurping the last bits of a ramen broth, that's one of my favorite things to do. And just look at all the good stuff that's here. Like I said, little bits of bacon. Still little bits of noodles. No ramen meal is ever completely complete until the last slurp. And right now, this feeling, probably the best I feel for the rest of the day. All right, until my next bowl of ramen. Every time I get to this part, I kind of replay the last 20 seconds or so in my head a little bit. Just let my taste buds relive the flavor just one more time before the hard reality hits me that this is over. Eating ramen, it's like a delicious rollercoaster ride. Oh well, still got a rice bowl. For this pork belly bowl, you gotta bring out the spoon. Melty egg, seaweed on top, little bits of fatty pork. Oh, this is the stuff I think they put into the bun. And this is, this is the best part. You guys ready for this? This is why I love food archaeology. Dig a little deeper, break the surface, and right there. That's what I'm looking for. Rice soaked from the fat and juice of the pork that was right on top of it. What I love about Japanese rice bowls is the rice, it's just gonna be as delicious as the other ingredients. Glistening with all that fat and juice soaked into every single grain. And besides all that, another massive, oh, this thing just broke apart. You know, if you ever decide to travel with this chashu, you need to buy some travel insurance because this thing will fall apart. Chashu's so beautifully charred on the outside. Chunks of fat, chunks of lean meat, all mixed together. And let's just dig right in. Big piece of bacon, some of that gorgeous juiced up rice. There you go. Little hint of sweetness, smokiness, but just as smooth and gentle as its ramen counterpart. I'm definitely inviting the hot oil to the party. That egg is everything. There was like a conversation within this bowl. The bacon was like, I'm the smoothest, silkiest thing in here. Bacon and egg together. You're gonna be having the worst day. This will bring a smile to your face. Gotta add the hot oil though. For me, I just want to dice everything up, mix the bowl together, let that rice touch everything that's good inside the bowl. Splash a brand new serving of hot oil over that. If anyone tells you that you cannot find happiness in a bowl of pork belly covered with rice, they're lying to you. Finally, last course. Gotta end it with this. Look at this thing. If you guys have never seen a matcha panna cotta dance, this thing should be putting on a grass skirt and showing off in a luau in Hawaii. This is almost too perfect to eat. Little matcha dessert, sip of matcha tea. If I close my eyes, I almost pretend I'm back in Japan. Yeah, this place, highly, highly recommended. You gotta try this ramen shop. If you're looking for ramen in New York City, come here. Try this place out. I think you'll love it. Only bad thing is they are changing locations and they don't know where they're gonna be. So by the time this video comes out, if I know where the new location is, I'm gonna put it in the description box below. If not, I'm gonna put their Instagram account down below, so follow their Instagram account and then when the new location is ready, go eat there. Go have a good ramen day, but I already had a great ramen day, but don't really want it to end, so let's keep going. Location number two, really popular ramen shop featured in Michelin Guide. Supposed to be amazing. Let's see if it is. We're at Tonchan Ramen. Menu's pretty simple. They really recommend, not the classic, but the smoked dashi ramen and the spicy dan dan men. I've heard good things about the dan dan men, so I'm 100% getting that and I also want to try the smoked dashi, so let's go for both of those. The other foods besides ramen, they told me that gyoza is a must-have, so then I must have it. Gyoza, two bowls of ramen. I think my day will be pretty much complete. This is the smoked dashi ramen. Never really seen anything like this before. It is the traditional tonkatsu broth, but they added, of course, smoked dashi to it, and it's got egg, smoked fish oil, clams, mizuna leaf, which is Japanese mustard greens, some seaweed, and what looks like fish roe. So this is like a surf-and-turf ramen right here, and this thing's been sitting on my table for about half a minute. It's already kind of congealing on top, so there is a lot of fat in this bowl for sure, and I can smell the smokiness of the dashi. Hello! This is my gyoza, and they poured the broth right on the sizzling plate. Oh, this smells insane! This thing just provided a whole new set of distractions. Gotta have one of these first. The skin, very thin, I think a little tiny bit thicker than the ones at Kanmei. Take a little swim, you can see the big chunk of meat inside. This thing, I bet you, this is a juicy dumpling. I see the skin. I can barely taste the skin. There's so much juice in the dumpling. They could basically call this a soup gyoza. I love the steaming plate. Every bite is hot, the skin is nicely toasted, it's very tender, gentle, slight bit of crunchiness, and just a bowl load of soup. Let's turn our attention back to the ramen. The noodles are on the thicker side, thick and curvy noodles. Whenever it comes to these noodles, the broth needs to be extra flavorful, otherwise I feel like the noodles, they don't soak up enough of the flavor, and I've never had clams in my ramen before. It's really a surf and turf ramen. It's a bunch of seafood and pork, and that broth, I can already tell that is a rich broth. That is such a unique ramen broth. You taste the fatty, creamy, silkiness of the pork, but then right away, you get that hit of fish. Yeah, 100% taste of fish. It works with the pork seamlessly. It's not overly fatty, it's got a great balance of flavor to it. I mean, I was kind of curious, like, how the fishy flavor will work with the pork. Perfectly. That's amazing. When you sip on these noodles, that's when the smokiness of this bowl really presents itself to you. I think that is more present than even the porkiness and the fishiness. It's really the smokiness of this whole thing. Ingredients, incredibly fresh. This mix is so good, and really enhances the porky, fishy flavor. And when I say fishy, I don't mean, like, it's funky. It's like you're eating these noodles with a side of Japanese smoked fish. You know how I was worried that the flavor might not penetrate these thicker noodles? Not a concern. This is a bowl you really enjoy with these two things right here. Your mouth and your nose. Like, that smoked flavor is just out of this world. Eat the gyoza with some of the spring onions. Genius. Gyoza is still nice and hot. This is one of those bowls you gotta drink till the last sip, because all the crunchy little fish eggs are on the bottom. Don't miss out on that. Tantanmyun, this is my favorite. Everything about it, I love. The rich and spicy broth, the meat, the ingredients. If ramen can be a type of girls, this will be my type. Spicy, deep, and full of substance. And look at the chashu. Holy moly. This thing, this could be used as a tarp to cover the top of the bowl of ramen. Noodles, the same kind. And they make their noodles here. These are actually amazingly chewy al dente. Very flavorful noodles. These grab onto the broth really, really well as well. Oh man. Bravo. That's everything I want my tantanmyun broth to be. The flavor profile is supposed to be a little heavy-handed, and this, as soon as I taste the broth, I mean, that's Sichuan for me. Nummy, spicy, very thick, little chunks of delicious minced meat. This is Sichuan meets Japan, right in this bowl. And what I love about tantanmyun is that this is a thicker broth. The noodles, I think, are the most flavorful inside this broth. I got five words for you guys. Come here and get this. The smoked dashi is great. It's very unique. You want to try something like that. If you're not into spices, that's a great option. You like heat? You like a little numbiness? This is your calling right here. It's just too good. I feel like I need another order of noodles to kind of offset how saturated and yummy this broth is. This is everything for me. The soup, the broth. Again, taste the tonkatsu. I love tonkatsu broth. It's my favorite. Love the little bits of meat. Oh man, the bottom of this broth is gonna be amazing. I didn't want to drink this whole broth because this is definitely on the heavier side of broths, and I have just had so many bowls of ramen today, but I can't resist this. Best tantanmyun I had in the city, by far. And look at that. I don't even know how to begin to eat this. I absolutely love the sesame flavor of this soup base. I think that's what really sets this apart from a lot of other tantanmyun I have, is how fragrant this thing is. I know I just had two bowls of ramen and a thing that gills up, but I figured I'd try their classic as well. So this is the broth that the owner started with. It's a Tokyo version of the tonkatsu broth, and they told me it's got pork and chicken in here. Oh, look at that liquid silk. And of course, their signature face-sized chashu, which I absolutely appreciate. And typically when you eat tonkatsu ramen in Japan, because it was created in Fukuoka, so you typically see really thin ramen noodles, kind of like you would see in Ippudo or Ichiran, but this, this is really different than anything else. That's delicious. It's a little less silky than you will find in Ippudo, maybe a bit more oily. It's not as heavy as the broths over at Ichiran, but it's flavored really, really well. And what I like about these noodles, actually, very, very true. You can taste the chicken that's also in this. The body of the broth itself, it's lighter than the other tonkatsu places I've been to, but the flavor is stronger. I think I still prefer the dan dan myeon, because that's just my, you know, it's my noodle. If I put everything I love about ramen in a ramen dating app, the dan dan myeon will show up. But this is also a very solid bowl of noodles, and it's very gelatinous. Definitely rich, really delicious. Really don't feel like I can go wrong with any bowl of noodles here. I need some dessert to kind of balance this day out. Japanese shaved ice, one of my favorite things in the world. Thank you, sir. Matcha kakigori. I didn't really even know about this until I went to Hong Kong. Now it's like my life. I mean, this thing is so pretty. Cream on top, beautiful shaved ice. And Japanese shaved ice is really different than the two other really popular types of shaved ice, the Korean shaved ice and the Taiwanese shaved ice. It's not as milky and creamy as Korean shaved ice, and it's not as coarse as Taiwanese shaved ice. Look how easy my spoon went in there. Take a little bit of the cream from the top. It's just a special way that this ice melts in your mouth. It's not as creamy nor as heavy as Korean shaved ice, and it's not like Taiwanese shaved ice where you kind of got to chew on it and crunch on the ice cubes. And this matcha is absolutely perfect. It's like eating a sweet, flowy cloud. After all those bowls of ramen, this is just the elixir that I've been hoping for. I thought I was all ramen-ed out today, but dinner time came along and I thought, I really feel like ramen for dinner. So third place I'm going to, a friend told me about it, hole-in-the-wall place, Ramen Yashida. Let's go. So I'm trying the shoyu and the spicy mushroom pork ramen. Shoyu, whoa, chicken truffle porcini mushrooms. That's a very unique Italian mushroom. Thin noodles, char siu, chicken breast. Huh, interesting. Bamboo shoots, eggs, spicy mushroom, porcini. Interesting. This is the first time I've seen ramen with a piece of chicken breast on top. Beautiful thin noodles. I think they have the same type of noodles as in budo. And shoyu, of course, it's a soy sauce based broth. Very light, a lot of umami flavor. Oh, this is the truffle sauce. And there's a lot of noodles in this bowl. As soon as you mix it in, you can smell the truffle aroma. That's a good smell. Broth clear. But don't let that fool you. This thing is going to have a lot of flavor in it. I love truffle. The truffle is perfect. There's nothing too aggressively flavored, like the last place I was at. It's just very, very soothing bowl of broth. This is the kind of broth you want on a rainy day. You know, just sitting there watching a Forrest Gump movie. This is what you want in front of you. I feel like these are the noodles, if you don't eat it with the broth, it's not going to have enough flavor. Actually, it's really, really good. That truffle aroma, like, just permeated through into the noodles itself. So whenever you take a bite of noodles, you're just like, your mouth will just hit. Truffle punch. Mmm. I was looking at this char siu and I was like, alright, I've been having like massive, you know, gorilla-sized char siu all day. This isn't something that's too unique. But he grilled this right before it went into the bowl. So it's still got that nice little crunch to it. Bowl, thanks so much for the recommendation. This is very, very good. And I'm so glad I came here because it's not like the first couple places I went to. The first two places, I feel like the flavor is very aggressive. It's like, it's my type of place. It's like punch you in the face kind of flavoring. This is just a soft lullaby. You know, it's just gentle and soothing and it just relaxes you. Completely different, equally delicious. You guys should come and try this one. Let me try the mushroom one. So this is more my type of ramen. And look at that mound of minced meat, chili oil. The broth is just mushrooms, scallions, and sesame. It's completely different. It's very thick broth. Tons of meat in there. Of course, it doesn't have any of the truffle flavor. There's a lot of sesame in here. It's good. The noodles are chewier because they're thicker. The aroma, obviously it's not as strong as truffle would be, but it's got that great mushroom flavor. If you're really into mushrooms, this will be your thing. Personally for me, I still prefer the shoyu broth ramen. That is a signature of this place, and I can see why. This is good, but if you come here, definitely recommend the first one. I totally forgot about my pork bun. Sorry, pork bun. Very melty. Tons of juice, you see that? The juice is falling out of the pork bun. I see a bit creamy, subtly sweet. But today, three different places, three amazing ramen meals. Can't think of a favorite? Loved the tantanmyun at the last place. Hame, the tonkatsu, is just mind-blowing. In this place, if you want something soothing and light and so incredibly aromatic, come here and get the truffle ramen. And it's only $13. I think this place definitely has the best pricing for boiled ramen. And really, it's hard for me to tell you, like, which place is the best. I mean, if you want something really spicy and nummy, citrus-y flavor in your ramen, you can find one of the best in Tongcheon. If you want just a nice, silky, smooth bowl of tonkatsu noodles, Hame is your place. And if you want just something really light, aromatic, well-balanced, right here. But I think I hit the ramen lottery in all three places on this ramen tour. So definitely, two gods looking out for me. Of course, guys, all the places I went to is listed in the description box below. Go there, check them out. Let me know how you like them in the comments below. Thank you all so much for watching. Until we eat again, I'll see you later.