Samurai Papa — Restaurant in New York

Close to perfection but my socks were not quite knocked off 🧦 This is a bummer because the place came highly recommended by a friend of mine. Overall my experience was good and you probably won't be disappointed or left hungry by your ramen bowl!

I ordered two dishes here, one appetizer and some ramen.

The appetizer I selected was an assortment of Japanese pickled vegetables, all of which were very good. Each of the four vegetables was a completely different combination of texture, flavor, and pickling brine. All were excellent and I highly recommend you try it.

The ramen bowl I ordered was the cloudy pork belly broth bowl with the sio (salt) tare. It came with a good variety of toppings and ingredients which were all pretty good. I'll break them down here:

Mushroom medley -- very good crunchy texture like seaweed salad. Pretty mild flavor. Great addition to the bowl.

Eggplant -- seemed like it was either roasted or sauteed, and it had a creamy texture with a bit of char and smoky flavor. Very nice!

Chashu -- delicious pork belly with a sweet mirin flavor. Texture and taste were good, but I was a bit disappointed that there was only one slice in my bowl :(

Egg -- the yolk on mine was slightly overcooked from the typical jammy / soft boil texture you see. The bottom edge of the yolk had gone completely hard which was a bummer

Noodles -- very good chewy texture with just the smallest amount of snap. Nice flavor

Various fresh veggies -- all seemed good quality, all as expected

So far so good...

Finally though, we get to the broth, which is where my largest critique (albeit still fairly small) lives. I was very excited about the cloudy pork belly broth but found it to be a bit lacking in flavor. I even ordered the simplest tare (sio / salt) so that the flavors of the broth could really take front and center. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to pick up on here and I felt that the taste was missing both potency and complexity that I would expect from a nice restaurant quality broth. That being said, the mouthfeel of the broth was great and it had a very nice shimmer to it lent from the fattiness of the pork belly.

Anyway, I'm definitely splitting hairs at this point and overall I did enjoy my meal. I'm sure you will too when you go!

In my opinion there are just a few small things to tweak which stand between Samurai Papa and...

I was doing my Sunday walk about when I stumbled across this restaurant hidden in the cut. I scratched my head because I don't remember seeing it ever. I walked in it was a small place but small place means that I might have a chance to get a seat during a mid afternoon. And I did. I do wish it was bigger perhaps if we continue to support this place The owner might decide to find a larger space and who knows what will happen there after, hint hint. I really liked the friendliness of the gentleman behind the bar and it seemed as though I was not the only one who was new to this place as a customer stated the food is really good. So now that cause me to have to try it. I checked the menu and to my surprise they had the brussel sprouts that I have only tried once at another restaurant. Need I tell you that I ordered it of course I don't need to tell you that but I'm telling you I ordered it and omg what fabulous flavors. I also ordered the spicy Dandan however I didn't order it dry I ordered it as a soup which was absolutely wonderful. As you can see in the photo great presentation. My mouth was tingling with fire just the way I like it not overbearing at all. Little baby bok choy was nice and clean and fresh throughout the leaves. If you're coming here make sure that you look for this place right at the corner because you can miss it it's in front of the bus stop. I'm glad I went out on my Sunday walk and I'm glad I chose this restaurant. The price was reasonable and I have room for dessert but chose to take a dessert somewhere else that I've never tried before perhaps next time. As I always say you could take my advice or you could try it out for yourself please step into this...

A bit of a hit or miss this place. I’ve been here a few times - once had an incredibly rude waiter scolded us for not consolidating our order ( he wanted us to say 2x chicken ramen instead of individually ordering it for example ). He seemed to be having a bad day though and apologized at the end of our meal. Still it made us uncomfortable and I felt bad because my friends were visiting from out of town and I recommended this place to them. Last time we went they were out of rice, which basically rules out half the menu. But they didn’t tell us until we had been sitting for 15 mins and ready to order (and wanted a rice dish). We also got a totally burnt appetizer which they allowed us to return. The ramen is decent. I had the cold Dan Dan noodles last time i was there and really enjoyed it. For the most part the food here is satisfying and if you want a casual place to eat out for a good price this will do the trick. I think I’ll stick to ramen and takeout...