Gastro Monkey // 美食家

Noodle in a Haystack is a ramen pop-up that I have been following for about a year now. Through following them, I learned that they had been working on their yuzu shio ramen for a few years now, and that they started making their own ramen because the local selection wasn't great , especially after having gotten used to the ramen in Japan (I was pretty excited to know that I wasn't alone in this assessment, or that others have suffered from culture shock moving back to the States!). Before I went to Japan and had real  ramen, I wasn't that picky. After having Ichiran and a few other random places, I just wasn't able to eat ramen anywhere. Santouka became the only place that I would go to, but their ramen is only tonkotsu. I personally prefer miso ramen, so the tonkotsu is too heavy for me to enjoy frequently. At first, I wasn't sure about going to Noodle in a Haystack because it looked like it was $50 for ramen. Let me explain why it's more than just ramen,...

Booknerd preface: If you are early to your reservation like I was, a few blocks down is Green Apple Books . It's a fun place to pass some time. Just don't get lost in there like I did and have to make a semi-run for it (ok, a light jog maybe?) to get to the restaurant in time.  That said, dinner was a few hours after watching the movie, Jimami Tofu , at the CAAM Festival at the Kabuki Theater in Japantown. The movie was about a Singaporean chef in Japan who loses sight of his cooking dreams after a bad breakup with a harsh food critic. He searches for this ex who walked out on him, in her hometown in Okinawa. Instead he finds her sister and father and learns about Okinawan cooking. It was overall very good, but it made me really question food critics. Can you critique if you can't do it yourself? This is why I agree with Andrew Zimmern on why Yelp is useless . That said, I feel self conscious about my reviews and want to offer just a view into places that you might ...