Minca - 536 E. 5th Street + Ippudo update

Minca is a authentic Japanese Ramen shop in the east village. After being denied at Ippudo several times due to the outrageous long wait (average 2 hours+) we have decided to try out Minca in the east village, and boy are we glad we did as it did not disappoint. We have heard good things about Ippudo from the decor to the food, but we would never wait longer then 30 mins to eat ramen, the crowd and atmosphere also wasn't for us. Minca on the other hand, was more our kind of place, a small discreet shop at the far end of the street, the hostess greeted us with friendly and fast service. The open kitchen allowed us to watch the Japanese cooks put together our dishes.

The menu had a fair selection, that included appetizers, ramen, and special ramen's/donn.We started with some hot green tea, a few sapporo's and shrimp gyoza. The handmade gyoza was brought out hot and fast, it was a generous size portion with whole peeled shrimp inside(nice touch) along with their soy dipping sauce. They were very good~ We also saw orders of kim chee and radish salad being served which both looked very tasty.

For the ramen the menu had several options which allowed you to choose different types of stocks(pork, chicken, miso and spicy), noodles(thin, thick, wavy, whole wheat, and bean) and toppings(pork or chicken charshu). One our first visit I had the pork and chicken broth - Kambi (soy sauce flavor), Angie tried out the pork and chicken broth - Kambi Sio (salt & roast garlic flavor), and my sister had the Miso ramen.  The Kambi's stock was very rich with soy and reminded me of a adobo(filipino style) sauce, the Kambi Sio has a nice earthy salt and very garlic flavor(not overly salted i.e Momofuku), while the miso had a strong bean taste(not my favorite). I had the thin noodles which were cooked a little less then al dente giving it a springy texture, I am pretty sure their noodles are not handmade. Each ramen also consisted of sliced stewed pork, scallions, seasoned bamboo shoots, mushrooms, nori, and a half of an egg stewed in soy sauce.

On my second visit I tried the Charshu ramen, with pork broth and thin noodles. This stock was very very rich, that had a strong pork flavor and had a noticeable amount of pork grease, which gave the stock a thicker/gelatinous consistency. This bowl was generously fitted with about 6 pieces of charshu, which was melt in your mouth good.

Overall Minca was above average, the stock, noodles and topping are all done well. On both occasions there were several Japanese expats dining along side us, along with local neighborhood folk, which confirms its authenticity. I did however leave with a slight MSG headache. All in all Minca's ramen was satisfying and we we should be back again.