In which we slaughter the Tomato King 🍅
The king is dead, long live the king.
Hello and welcome back to Five Things I Ate! This week, we eat ramen, and get a more invigorating experience than we bargained for. Check out past posts here, and please follow my Instagram @fivethingsiate.
Chilled Tomato Dashi Soup at Ivan Ramen
25 Clinton St, New York, NY 10002
I very rarely write a bad review but the chilled tomato dashi ramen at Ivan Ramen is… simply mind boggling. “Why is it so spicy?” I asked my dining companion with wide eyes, who made the risky and unfortunate decision of ordering it. As if it weren’t already enough to have lukewarm rye noodles in a cold tomato soup, topped with a heaping scoop of raw tuna, this bowl of ramen is inexplicably, tongue-numbingly spicy. Floating among the gray noodles is a thick, watery slice of tomato. “This slice of tomato,” my dining companion said, “is like the work of a madman who absolutely hates tomatoes. It is as if you went and slaughtered the Tomato King, and discarded his body in this soup to spite him. Like a raw, floating tomato corpse.” At least the chilled tomato dashi soup is a good creative writing prompt, even if it is not good for much else.
Chicken paitan ramen at Ivan Ramen
25 Clinton St, New York, NY 10002
The chicken paitan ramen is pretty good — very rich for a chicken ramen (the next day, the leftover broth congealed into a fatty disc in the fridge takeout container), and the addition of egg yolk on top is fun. At Ivan Ramen, all the noodles are made out of rye flour — a choice that’s not my favorite, but not unpleasant, either. But after the unfortunate incident with the cold tomato ramen, it is simply impossible for me to look at any dish from the kitchen at Ivan Ramen without a deep, underlying suspicion that I might be about to be trolled. I made it all the way through the bowl without any surprises, but I still felt uneasy that something like a scoop of raw tuna or a slice of raw vegetable might reveal itself at any minute.
Stir-fried watercress at The Original Buddha Bodai Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant
5 Mott St, New York, NY 10013
There was absolutely no earthly reason for me to order enough vegan dim sum at 4:30PM in the afternoon that the delivery person thought I was a family of four when I had dinner plans at 7:30, but life’s too short to always act based on logic. And I’m just so grateful that Buddha Bodai survived the pandemic, I like to occasionally over-order just to make sure it’s still there. In addition to serving just about every type of faux-meat you can dream of (including faux-shrimp), I really appreciate that they don’t skimp on the veggies. The order of stir-fried watercress was well worth the $9.95, and will last even the most herbivore of humans a few solid side dishes.
Shredded turnip pastry at The Original Buddha Bodai Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant
5 Mott St, New York, NY 10013
This little delight is so much more than the sum of its parts -- which admittedly, does not sound so appealing when you type it out: Shredded daikon radish and puff pastry. But the textural combination (flaky, buttery outside; soft, silky strands of daikon inside) makes the shredded turnip pastry heavenly. They’re small, cute, and savory, and best eaten very fresh, so that the insides don’t sog. These babies just need a little work on branding.
Vegetarian Shrimp Rice Roll at The Original Buddha Bodai Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant
5 Mott St, New York, NY 10013
In the Before Times™️, one of my greatest joys was to leave the office early with a girl friend, and go on the hunt for fresh steamed rice rolls in Chinatown.* Thanks to Buddha Bodai, I got to relive that feeling of sitting at a cramped, greasy table with a good friend while eagerly slurping down warm, fresh, comforting blankets of rice noodle. My go-to filling for rice noodles is shrimp, so I ordered the vegetarian shrimp at Buddha Bodai, since it’s a vegan shop. It’s more like seitan than shrimp, but still, very, very tasty and comforting.
*Go Believe is one of my favorite bakeries, and open again, I believe. I wrote about it here.
Til we meet again,
Soph