As Long As I Live In New York...

I will probably never make this dish from scratch. Yes I own the cookbook, and yes I have the culinary knowledge, the accessibility to all ingredients, and the required cookware, but why... when I can just go to the restaurant?

Lazy? Perhaps, but let me just say, the broth alone takes 8+ hours to make. The pork belly takes over 24. The whole dish requires things like nori, fish cake, konbu, as well as about 40 other slightly more recognizable items. So would you make this when you could just grab a friend, settle down to the counter and have a bowl in front of you in less than 15 minutes? That's right, I thought not.



Seriously. This is page 1 of more than 20.

Did I also mention that it's my go to when I'm sick? During the height of the holiday shopping, naturally I came down with the worst cold. But presents won't buy themselves, so I dragged myself out. When it came time to re-energize, my first thought was ramen and I came here. Today with a friend, also suffering from a bad cold, here we came again. It's the broth, it's the egg-y protein, it's the chewy noodles, the salty fish cake, the melting pork belly. It's that combination of so many delicious things all in one hot bowl of ramen. Chicken soup has nothing on this.

And with the egg it qualifies as brunch!

So I'm not giving you the recipe here. It would take days to read through. But if you are bold enough to make from scratch, invite 10 or so friends over and have everyone contribute to a part (and also... why would you go through all that for just one bowl?).

And I know David Chang gets a bad rap from both chefs and culinary snobs for seeming a little too trendy, too mainstream. But as I said, I have the book. I've seen the recipes, I've even made a few. The time and energy and what has to be an absolute extreme love of food that he has shines through not only in the book but in his food (and I've had more than the ramen). The man has my respect, for what that's worth. And while it may not be uber authentic, whatever that means in New York, for ramen Momofuku will always be my go to.