What's so incredible? Why is she so awesome? How does she do it?

It’s no secret why. Noodles, for starters, and since I’m as big a ramen aficionado as anyone, it was only a matter of time before I heard whispers of Momofuku’s claim to fame. Of course, it helps that my work spouse likes to chase James Beard winners across the country and gags at the mere thought of takeaway pizza. Bless her.

I was thrilled to be moving to Washington DC because serious faced ramen was now only a bus ride away. East coast snow is worth the proximity to New York City for a foodie like me, and sure enough I found myself Manhattan-bound on a shoot shortly after unpacking. Per diem be damned, to the ramen circuit I went. Ippudo, Minca Factory, I’ll even count Menchanko-Tel in the mix.

That trip had me sitting in the hot seat, chatting with the guys behind the open kitchen as I nibbled my first taste of Momofuku, and even though I thought the noodles were all wrong for the broth and the pork was anticlimactic and why is there so much salt in the tare? there was something about the soul of the place that stuck with me. Not the best bowl of ramen, but even that disastrous apple soup with hake didn’t stop them. Those guys whipped up the best pork buns I’ve ever eaten and took ddokbokke to a new level entirely.

Okay, so his sauces might need firmer parental guidance, but I still think Chang is the accidental sort of genius. My college flatmate gave me his cookbook for my birthday and now that I’ve just about cooked my way through it a year later, the stories and the spirit contained within have only engendered more respect for the team behind the empire. I adore them.

It’s interesting, since I don’t fancy Dave or Pete for their tastes or their vision; most of the the time Chang didn’t have a clue what he was doing and tended to alienate the staff trying to figure it out. Oh, but how I love his attitude. Reading his travel memoirs in newly published Lucky Peach is like frolicking about Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Every article is part ill-advised tomfoolery and premeditated study, hinting that none of it would work should they stop cocking about with meat glue like boy scouts playing with fire. The whole story of Chang’s rise to fame leaves the observer confused but entranced, probably because his endless diatribes about tsukemen are fueled by pig fat as much as pure intuition. His approach seems so thick-headedly masculine, but underneath the temper Chang’s touch with food is a counter-balancing delicate one, reverent at times, highlighting moments of insightful contemplation until he regales the various upchucks that come with his insatiable appetite for ramen.

It’s hard to explain my curious fascination. In doing so, I sound as nutty as they do. You have to be nuts to be a Korean from Virginia obsessed with Japanese food winning a French Award. You have to be nuts to pickle your own kimchi with as much sugar as he does. Momofuku was not a fluke. Ssam, Ko, Milk, even Lucky Peach all suggest Chang’s success is no happy coincidence. He and his partners in crime did not have a vision. There was an expansive plan, but it failed. Plans B, C, and D ate it just as hard. Their big wins came from the unplanned bits.

I suspect this is why I am so enchanted by a Chef whose food could just as easily offend me. This is also what David Chang has to teach me about success. Sure the guys can cook, and yes, luck was undoubtedly involved, but their guts and their willingness to plow through uncharted territory is the driving force behind their brilliance. Every time they caught each others’ eyes and said “fuck it,” they found their stride.

A plan is an okay thing to have, but a vision is hardly requisite for success. You’ve got to follow your gut, even when your mentors stonewall you because they think you’re insane or you get fired because you love ramen more than soba. Somewhere in there is the grit to make it happen, especially when you have no idea how the happening is supposed to look. Futzing around with jury-rigged sous vide setups and experimenting with 1º temperature variations in cooking soft boiled eggs is not holding you back, it’s thrusting you forward. Testing and trying and fiddling and playing around until you find your stride is success. It just takes a while for everyone else to see it.

When I die, I hope I can find Chanpon in heaven because that noodle soup was plate-lickin’ good. Full review over at my foodblog, Up for Dessert.

Tokyo has an older part and a newer part. Asakusa is what you’d expect Tokyo to look like, with its crowded streets and dingy establishments, but truthfully it’s a rarity in the city that boasts the new and shiny everywhere you look. Asakusa has some of my favorite little hidey-holes too, including that tiny little Sento I spent every night at for a week, including my favourite okonomiyaki seller, including the best spot to get ceramics, and until recently, I hadn’t ever had noodles there. Seemed fitting to get traditional noodles in traditional Tokyo (well, if there is such a thing), just a stone’s throw from Senso-ji, the largest and most famous Buddhist temple in the city.

Read the full review over at my foodblog, Up for Dessert.

I live across the street from a fabulous Thai restaurant in Arlington, and I drag most of my mates to it on a regular basis. What I’m trying to say here is that I’m a bit of a Thai snob. I don’t do mediocre Thai. So when I was invited out to T.H.A.I. in Shirlington, I got a little nervous. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Thai food, but I also deplore bad Thai food. I decided to roll the dice of culinary fate and let the chips fall where they may.

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Turns out, I worried over nothing. T.H.A.I. in Shirlington was good Thai. Their lunch specials made my eyes pop out; at least a dozen options of noodle bowls and curry sets priced in the single digits and served with heaping portions of meat or tofu. I got the “Poor Man’s Noodles,” which were a stripped down version of a Pad Thai, consisting of peanuts, bean sprouts, scallions, egg, and fried tofu. The tofu was awesome: crispy on the outside but still spongey and flavourful on the inside. I was pleasantly surprised.

I made some pasta. It isn’t anything special, just your garden-variety pasta sauce. Just tomatoes, onions, garlic, white wine, seasonings. Just a little goats cheese and basil on top. Nothing crazy. And yet, it’s unlike anything I could find in a restaurant. The tomatoes are from my garden (some yellow, some red, some heirloom, some tiger-striped) and they’re just itching to burst in your mouth. The wine is an unbelievable Chardonnay from California (and I hate Chardonnay) I found in Charlottesville for under ten dollars.

I eat a lot of noodles. More than I let on. But most of the noodles I make are of the Italian variety simply because that’s what I know how to cook. It’s so commonplace to me that I never talk about the sauces I make at home, even though I’ve made some wild stuff. You can do anything with a pasta sauce, and I’ll make a tomato and butter sauce one week, then a mushroom sauce the next, and a spring veggie sauce the week after. Sometimes it’ll be just beans, sometimes just pesto, sometimes a hodgepodge of everything in my icebox, and while I think of zucchini lemon pasta as a totally normal fixture of anyone’s dinner rotation, I forget to tell people that’s what I ate.

So here it is, the pasta sauce I made. It seems run of the mill, but at the same time, it’s not, because every sauce I make is a little bit special.

I recognize that I might have a slight addiction to pho. Maybe not addiction, precisely, because while I can go long stretches of time without pho and think nothing of it, I have a pathological inability to turn down an invitation to consume the thing. When people tell me they haven’t had pho, I feel an uncompromising need to introduce them to the dish. Luckily for me, pho is picking up popularity here in the states.

Of course not all of us can make it out to Pho 75 when the craving strikes, so I’ve been sampling some of the faceless pho joints in unsuspecting strip malls over the past few weeks. Pho is a simple dish at its heart — no sides or service required, just a hot bowl and a hungry person — so to stake the merit of these establishments on the service they provide would be to misunderstand pho entirely. The dish gets guillotined by my scorecard and the dish alone.

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Pho Vinh Loi in Falls Church isn’t first on the list of pho places I’d recommend, but it’s accessible enough and the food makes for a nice lunchtime out. The basics are all there, but where the restaurant really shines is the number of pho varieties on the menu (not to mention its all Vietnamese patronage). There’s some unusual pho options here that veer away from the standard beef.

It’s pho, though. So you can expect an unreasonable amount of food for an unrealistically low price served impossibly hot and unimaginably quickly. I think that’s the best part right there, but there are many more reasons to like pho. It’s fresh, it won’t leave you feeling grease-laden, it’s cheap, it’s delicious…what do you think is the best part of pho? What makes it so addictive and appealing?

Pho is an unsung breakfast food. That’s right, I said breakfast food. While a hot bowl of noodles says cheap lunch to the average westerner, it says good morning to millions of Asian from all over the Pacific.

Have you had pho before? It’s fresh, light, and mild in flavor. It’s chock full of fresh veggies and comes with a plate covered in bean sprouts, jalapeños, cilantro, and purple basil. It’s filling without being greasy, and it’s easy to make. Unfortunately though, most Pho places aren’t exactly open for breakfast. So I had to settle for brunch on a sunny Saturday when I took the long walk down Mt. Vernon to Pho King.

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My love of pho was not disappointed. In a complex known for great food — Bombay Curry, Del Merei Grill, and Pizzaiolo neighbour Pho King — Pho King is right at home. A big bowl of Pho Chay will run you about $8, steep for pho but of course pretty reasonable by Arlington standards. It’s fresh and tasty though, and comes out piping hot. I personally appreciate how they don’t skimp on the limes, my favourite part of pho for the splash of brightness it adds.

The rest of the menu is rather lackluster, but the pungent broth and the chewiness of the tiny noodles more than make up for the place’s other shortcomings: minimal decor, ultra-utilitarian service, and a distinct lack of English proficiency. Still, I don’t expect a food like pho to come with pomp and circumstance; pho has always been a food of the masses. So whether you’re a pho connoisseur or looking to try a beloved variety of noodle, Pho King is a decent place to start.

A cursory glance at the menu will reveal one an only one option. Do not be distracted by the myriad toppings on the table in front of you, or the cheery staff trying to convince you cold noodles are the best choice. Do not get caught up in deciding how you’d like your noodles cooked, since Hakatatenjin will cook them to order. Do not spend forever debating whether you want the thin, somen-like noodles, or the slightly thicker spaghetti-esque noodles. Do not be afraid to pay the extra 50¥ it costs to dip that ladle into the vat of pickled eggs and call one your own.

Or rather, do. Do all of this. Do, because you are at Hakatatenjin Ramen in Shinjukugyoenmae and any carb coma you might induce can be averted by a long stroll in the massive park nearby. You are safe, so go ahead and put on those extra pickled ginger shreds, and go ahead and finish off those menma. You’re in good hands.

Hakatatenjin Ramen is serious black pork ramen for seriously hungry patrons. In a country where hundreds of noodle shops line nearly every street, it can be difficult to pick one out of the crowd. Hakatatenjin’s boisterous staff and dirty yellow awning are tell-tale signs that old-school quality is not far behind, something so often amiss when it comes to the more modern, vending machine ramen spots. Even harder to find is service like this, with a staff that will try to make you giggle no matter which language you speak, and a policy that will dish up more noodles when you’ve finished your first batch for the same price.

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Ah and the noodles are why you’re here, aren’t they? The thinner, chewier cousin of the dime a dozen ramen chains in Shinjuku come in a tangled mess, compacted into the bottom of a chipped, cereal bowl. But the soup packs a flavour stronger than any cocoa puff or lucky charm, and when all is said and done you may find yourself never wanting to leave. If only that thick soup with beads of fat swirling round the surface could stretch on forever you could call Hakatatenjin home, because for all intents and purposes, when you’re here, you are home.

Hakatatenjin Ramen（博多天神 ラーメン）
Nearest metro stop: Shinjukugyoenmae

Kamatama Udon-ya is an unassuming little shop halfway between Hase station and the daibutsu in Kamakura. Like so many small noodle joints in Japan, you’ve only got a handful of choices, and even less elbow room to boot. Still though, the smell alone is all you need to be assured of its quality, and even then, if the smell wasn’t enough, there’s the tray of flour-speckled udon clearly just made today, the flying hands behind the counter chopping minuscule green onions, and the faint sizzle that can only mean tempura-battered something or other. You will not be disappointed.

It may seem crass to us foreigners, but eating the face of Buddha in your noodle soup is pleasantly kitschy in Japan, and in Kamakura especially, mere minutes from the great metal Buddha, such a gimmick is fitting. The soup itself is far from gimmicky. Perhaps it’s just been too long since I’ve had a proper bowl of noodles, or that my American sensibilities are so easily impressed by the delights of properly prepared Japanese food, but in any case I may have come close to reaching nirvana in that very shop.

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The noodles are thick, but light, not dense like some fall varieties of udon tend to be, and of a completely un-uniform nature that points to their handmade authenticity. Your smiling buddha udon can be served hot or cold, depending on the season, in a scalding or a lukewarm dashi stock, depending on your preference. Alongside the standard noodles and broth is a large soy bean (Buddha’s third eye), a fried fishcake (his nose), and one of the tastiest cured eggs I think I’ve ever had: a hard boiled, just set mix of salt and age that one could only hope to duplicate. Needless to say, I licked the bowl clean.

Noodles undoubtedly make for the best late night food. Whether you had an amazing evening filled with romance and poetry or a night of drunken debauchery, the noodle joint is the place to round it all out. Never tried it? Well, when three meals aren’t enough to tide you over for the day’s activities, I find a bowl of some kind of hot noodles — pho in the spring, vermicelli in the summer, udon in the winter, and in this case, ramen all year round — will fill you up without leaving you heavy, satisfy your craving for salt, and comes in a formidably-sized bowl big enough to abate even the largest of grumblies. Simply put, noodles are the best late night snack around.

So when I was feeling peckish after seeing a live show and found myself in Bloosmbury, where did I decide to go but to the original Wagamama. Those familiar with both the UK and Boston will probably nod emphatically here, while the rest of you might be wondering what in the world Wagamama is, let alone how a chain of pan-asian-themed restaurants could win someone as die hard as I over. Surely Wagamama doesn’t live up to its expectations?

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Of course it does. Wagamama started in a basement, but the establishment could hardly be described in terms of peeling paint, yellowing light, or faux-anything usually associated with Asian look-alikes here in the states. Westernised Asian in England has a posh edge to it (a la Ping Pong, but more on that later), with minimal polished wood tables, recessed lighting, and exposed architectural elements. It manages to keep from smelling like a mix of floor cleaner and peanut oil as well, confirming my suspicions that Wagamama is using fresh vegetables and homemade stocks in their concoctions.

That’s what I’m really here to write about anyway, the concoctions, which are salty without burning your tongue and manage to offer the unusual on a menu packed with crowd favorites (i.e., I ordered pretty faithful tsukemono, Japanese pickles most patrons haven’t even heard of). In Boston I had the yasai yakisoba and gyoza, which were delectable, though didn’t exactly reek of the street cart variety I had in mind. In London though, the miso ramen met all of my expectations. It was briny like the real deal, chock full of vegetables that came piled on top, requiring a bit of stirring to get you going, and had a healthy portion of wakame, or green seaweed in the proportions most westerners are afraid to dole out to an amateur. In search of a late-night bite, it really was everything I had hoped. Next time I’m in London, I will definitely check out some of the more off-the-beaten-path ramen joints, but with a reputation as big as Wagamama’s, can you blame me for giving the big boys a well-deserved shot?