Terakawa Ramen Review: Terakawa Ramen
One time we gathered in Pat’s room because Jeremy or Pat had discovered this insane video involving baby eels. I’m not going to get into it, except to say that that my jaw was touching the ground. The point is, sometimes you watch an insane video, and you can’t follow it up with “Why was that so insane? I didn’t want it to be that insane!” Terakawa Ramen was penned as a miss, by Midtown Lunch. I think the author of that post (Brian), simply missed the boat. Sometimes you walk into a fancy shop and the shop owner goes, “Do you want the midget with the donkey and the stripper, or just the donkey and the stripper?” You almost always add the midget for the nominal fee. Same at Terakawa Ramen, which by the way, I paid for with my own money, unlike some people who write about tenderloins and get it for free. Cunt. (Yea I know he’s a dude, relax). Snipping aside, the midget in this case is the garlic oil. Yup, it’s the thing that put Hide-Chan Ramen on the map. You add that shit because it’s delicious.
The garlic oil only adds a couple of bucks to your tab and it’s completely worth it. It kind of makes the meal really. Without it, Terakawa would surely be ordinary. Sure you could walk a few blocks away and get the Extreme Spicy Ramen at Totto Ramen. But you might have to wait in line. Bosses aren’t always so lenient on lunch break duration sometimes. If you have plenty of time to spare, I agree with Brian, head to Totto. Terakawa isn’t heads and shoulders above other ramen places. They just do the garlic oil thing that I love.
While Terakawa excels at the broth/soup, they’re definitely shitty when it comes to the pork. It’s soft enough, but soft meats need to get hit with high heat at some point. Get that Maillard Reaction (caramelization) all up in that shit. And they only give you one slice, which is kind of cheap. But hey, $11 ramen in the city is almost a steal and delicious without waiting too.
Lastly I want to talk about two things. Anthony Weiner and free tenderloins. Two separate issues. First the tenderloin. I was reading this blog about how to grill tenderloin. And the author was waxing poetic about sourcing the best ingredients. Then, the author goes and gets a FREE whole tenderloin from a top purveyor. Sure, the author mentions it… but it’s exactly the reason you don’t want to spend you time as a restaurant blogger covering food ‘events’. Because unless you publish posts about food events right at the beginning, your readers can’t go. If your readers can’t eat what you ate, what the fuck is the point? Is any restaurant food blogger that fucking interesting that they can be like, “Hey I went there, now it’s over, but let me tell you how awesome it is.” I did that for the Big Apple BBQ last two years but I’m just going to go if I wanna go in the future and not write about it. Same idea for recipe bloggers. You go out and get FREE food because of your stature and then tell people to buy the best ingredient when you don’t buy it yourself? If that’s not the definition of cunt, then someone give me a better one. Because that’s a cunt to me.
Last month I mentioned how I loved Grant Achatz’s book and he mentioned in the book that he never wants to talk bad about another chef. You know cuz the craft is hard and those who make it all work really hard. It’s a good idea that I won’t follow. Look, I ain’t got nothing against this food writer who got the free tenderloin. He probably hustles hard. He probably has bills to pay. Except he’s that dad who tells his son that a man should be loyal to his wife, then goes out and fucks a hooker. I just think that’s a shitty move. If you’re gonna say buy the best ingredient, then you gotta BUY the best ingredient for your recipe entry. It makes no sense otherwise. People want to all be like, poor folks in this country are most likely to be obese and not be cooking the healthy shit you see on recipe blogs. It’s kinda hard to follow a model where the guy telling you how to do it just randomly gets to source the protein for FREE. It might be a shittier move to publicly call him a cunt, but he doesn’t read my blog so it’s all kosher.
And this Anthony Weiner thing. Gut reaction as a guy who only votes Democrat… it really wasn’t that bad. He didn’t break any laws. He wasn’t a hypocrite about it all. He wasn’t one of those “conservative value” Republicans that gets caught taking it in the ass while harping about how wrong his own secret is when he goes down on some dude in an airport bathroom. No, this is just one guy who probably would have gone down the path of the Governator if he had more time to hatch his plans. So maybe it’s good he tripped up now instead of later down the line. I still think he should step down for two reasons: 1. he’s not that special of a congressman. 2. What you want from your leaders is good decision making. In his heart of hearts, Weiner knew that this shit is mad creepy. If you’re doing mad creepy shit, and trying to get away with it… what does it really say about what you’re doing? And then the decision to say, “Yup, this is OK as long as no one finds out!!” Idiot. We don’t need that kind of fuckwads in Congress.
Terakawa Ramen885C 9th Ave.New York, NY 10019
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