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Photograph: Courtesy of Ippudo V
There are two possible the explanation why Ippudo V, the sixth New York location of the Japanese ramen chain, hasn’t achieved the line-out-the-door standing of its different outposts regardless of having opened this summer season. First, the V stands for “vegan,” and the window and sidewalk indicators proclaiming “vegan ramen” could also be doing extra hurt than good relating to the individuals who rightly affiliate Ippudo’s noodle soup with the essence of pork. (A co-worker walks previous the house a number of occasions every week and informed me that he by no means even realized it was an Ippudo.) The opposite detrimental element is that this restaurant is positioned in Dumbo, and never the lovable waterfront a part of Dumbo. This restaurant is in bridge-overpass Dumbo at a very windy intersection of development and multilane site visitors.
However Ippudo V is value a cease, particularly on the windiest evening, it doesn’t matter what one’s meat-eating credentials is likely to be. Straight away, it doesn’t appear fairly like a “restaurant” owing to a full-fledged reward store hawking Ippudo-branded gear — a rack of hoodies, stacks of tie-dye T-shirts and caps, insulated water bottles — instantly to the left of the doorway. However behind the streetwear is an open kitchen dealing with a brightly lit bar that, together with the random coffee-table books and plastic ivy wall, evokes a co-working house. The menu is introduced through a QR code imprinted on a wooden block.
The vegetation could also be faux, however the vegan menu doesn’t lean on Unimaginable-style imitation protein, apart from one thing referred to as “soy meat,” which seems in one of many ramen dishes and which I additionally suspect might be the “plant-based pork” discovered within the gyoza. All 4 soups — soy, miso, “rooster,” “pork” — are largely garnished with greens reduce and cooked to numerous results, like a slice of grilled tomato and onion tempura within the soy broth. (Plant-based “tuna” reveals up in among the sushi rolls, however the one I had was skippable; you’re coming right here for the noodles.)
This occurs to be the primary vegan Ippudo out of its many areas in California, Europe, and everywhere in the Pacific, and whereas there does appear to be some part overlap with the vegan choices at a “common” New York Ippudo — tofu chashu, fried enoki mushrooms — the dishes at Ippudo V really feel completely totally different, beginning with tonkotsu-inspired broth, as cloudy because the recipe created from pork bones and probably extra savory. My server advised stirring in a scoop of natto — fermented soy — for a taste enhance, however the soup was salty and wealthy sufficient to assist the thick, curly ramen noodles that have been nonetheless loads chewy as I ate them. These noodles additionally fared higher than the thinner wheat noodles in a transparent, poultrylike broth, although I appreciated the heavy dose of leeks, cabbage, and garlic chips that perfumed the bowl.
In comparison with a latest cease on the East Village Ippudo, which had a wait checklist at 4 p.m. on a Saturday, I can say that the bowl-for-bowl expertise is presently higher at Ippudo V, even when it’s not on the radar of ramen trackers but. In Dumbo, two guys sitting subsequent to me on the bar had stopped in on their method again to Queens after a Nets sport after studying about it on social media. Certainly one of them, a vegetarian Japanophile, informed me that he thinks of Ippudo as “the previous grey woman of ramen,” the place “vegetarians appear to be an afterthought.” This, he stated, felt totally different. That hunch was strengthened when my miso ramen arrived underneath a dome of glass. The server lifted the lid and woody smoke floated throughout the bar. My new mates have been impressed with the present. “This,” one stated, “was not on the TikTok.”
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