Keeping up with the Momofukus
Credit to Author: Mia Stainsby| Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2019 18:00:15 +0000
Momofuku Noodle Bar
East Village, 171 First Avenue, NYC; and 10 Columbus Circle, NYC
Kawi
20 Hudson Yards, 5th floor, NYC
Lunch and dinner daily
Since David Chang’s restaurant empire, the Momofuku Restaurant Group, is a big deal in New York, and increasingly internationally, including in Toronto, I made my pilgrimage in New York recently.
I visited his firstborn, Momofuku Noodle Bar in East Village, and then Kawi, a high-end modern Korean restaurant that recently opened.
When the Noodle Bar opened in 2004, the New York Times said it caused “a slurp heard around the world” — Chang’s colourful bad boy Visitpersona (loaded with f-bombs) backed up by French techniques and a workaholic drive for quality created the Momofuku (translation: lucky peach) sensation.
Today, with 10 restaurants (never a stand-still number), including the two-Michelin-star Momofuku Ko, 10 Fuku fried chicken stands, a partnership in 15 Milk Bar locations (desserts), a second season of his Netflix doc Ugly Delicious (he and Seth Rogen visited HK BBQ Master in Richmond earlier this year for the series), and Majordomo Media, a platform for podcasts and television projects, people are still clamouring for seats at the Momofuku Noodle Bar. Awards he has collected over those years could fill this column.
We arrived early, and after a 15-minute wait, had front-row seats at the counter facing frenetic cooks assembling bowls of noodles and small sharing plates. “Hot! Hot! Hot!” a cook bellows, passing another with steaming noodles. Another cook grates fresh wasabi for a dish — no fake wasabi, in other words.
We ordered steam buns with roasted shiitake, hoisin, scallion and cucumber (US$13). The buns were light and supple and loaded with mushrooms, but not all were moist with hoisin, in fact some were dry.
Tofu with tomatoes and fish roe at Momofuku Noodle Bar.
Excited by the lovely sight of a neighbour’s dish, I order the same. It was tofu, moulded into a porcelain panna cotta-like dome lapped with cherry tomatoes (US$16), its juices and smoked trout roe, composing a gorgeous dish.
For noodles, I had ginger scallion ramen with pickled shiitake, cucumber and wakame (US$15), a dry noodle dish. The noodles were delicately light with a little chew and the toppings brought brightness and freshness.
My husband’s spicy beef ramen (US$19) came with three thick slices of “extraordinarily good” beef brisket, as he put it, atop crinkly noodles and fresh green pea shoots. The broth was very spicy, but he slurped up every bit of it.
Servers were attentive and friendly, but rushed — water glasses topped up? Yes, but to the brim.
We weren’t planning on dessert, but surprise! Our server comped us a caramelized white chocolate pie with hazelnuts and puffed rice, a thank you for helping to clean up a water spill by a neighbouring guest. But the too-mild flavour didn’t win us over.
The noodles were very good, but we’re so spoiled in Vancouver with so many great ramen shops, it wasn’t revelatory. Where Momofuku Noodle Bar shone for us was in the other dishes — the steam buns and that delectable tofu dish.
The dining room at Kawi.
Kawi is on the fifth floor of the Hudson Yards mega-mall of gleaming surfaces and expensive retail. In a big-boned masculine space of dark woods and leather, Kawi stays truer to Korean cuisine than other properties, with executive chef Eunjo Park in charge. She has worked at Momofuku Ko, Daniel and Per Se, as well as the three-Michelin star Gaon in Seoul. Modern Korean cuisine restaurants are on a high in New York and Los Angeles, with notable restaurants like Atomix , Soogil and Oiji in New York and Chang’s raved-about Majordomo in Los Angeles. Vancouver is trying (Sura, Damso, Maru in North Van), but not on that calibre.
The Kawi is about sharing plates. The first dish to arrive, sweet and sour spareribs (US$15), was outstanding — so tender, lacquered with a glossy sauce and taking on a flavourful deep dive.
A server chopped fluke into tartare (US$17) at the table, mixing in yuzu and ginger. This dish from the seafood (Hwe) section of the menu was testament to the quality of seafood. It came with toasted white bread, which I found odd.
Pork belly dish at Kawi.
Next to us, more tableside activity — a server cutting up Korean noodles with scissors (thus the name kawi, a play on the word for scissors in Korean).
Under rice cakes and noodles, rice cake dumplings with parmesan and summer truffles (US$32) nudged into mac and cheese territory with enough cheese (in the sauce and a drift of grated parmesan on top). A bit of fusion confusion there, but delicious.
We had a nicely constructed kimbap, the Korean maki sushi, with charred kale and avocado (US$18). Korean sushi rice has sesame oil instead of the vinegar in the Japanese version. Instead of soy sauce and wasabi, it came with beet bonji, a Momofuku product — fermented and cold-pressed like soy sauce. The sidekick habenero sauce set my tongue on fire.
A tuna belly dish, a special, came sizzling in ginger, mirin soy, jalapeno sauce, and some rice, nori and perilla leaves came with it to fold around the tuna. Delicious, delicious tuna belly, but messy, messy to wrap.
Bing sui (shaved ice) with coconut, lime syrup, whipped cream, candied jicama and crumbled cookies at Kawi.
The dessert of note is a drama queen, a teetery mile-high bing sui (shaved ice) with coconut, lime syrup, whipped cream, candied jicama and crumbled cookies.
One service glitch — I’d ordered a tea, which didn’t arrive. The server apologized profusely and sent us two lovely teas.