Hide-Chan Ramen
Some blog readers must hate this: you read about something on a blog and get excited to go, and when you go, everything changed. So this happens to blog writers too. This happened at Hide-Chan Ramen in Midtown East. The takeaway? Awesome bowl of ramen. But the awesomeness I heard about it's Mega Ton bowl, full of porky wonders was nowhere to be found on the menu. A review at SE:NY mentions how you get to choose broth intensity and noodle type. No and no. They also mentioned that they had a great pork toro appetizer for $5. No longer on the menu. Such is the perils of dining in New York City. Seasons come and go, and I bet pork prices went sky high and they can't offer those porky dish and still make money. So that's how the seasonal menu comes in and saves the day for the restaurant. For the dining public though, it's a little misleading about what you can and cannot expect from a restaurant. But having said all of that, I love the ramen here.
Hide-Chan Ramen is actually a sister restaurant of Totto Ramen. Last time at Totto, I got the Extreme Spicy Ramen and it was both chickeny and spicy hot. At Hide-Chan, they offer a different kind of broth. It's a Hakata-style tonkotsu broth. So it's pork instead of chicken. The consensus on the blogs and on NYTimes and Midtown Lunch is that the noodles with the black garlic oil is the one to get (Hakata Kuro Ramen. $9.75). I followed that advice and was rewarded with a body-warming bowl of broth and excellent ramen noodles. There's two pieces of cha siu pork on top of the soup and they were nice and tender. They also scattered some scallions on the noodles which went really well with the noodles.
I like both Hide-Chan Ramen and Totto Ramen. They're both on 52nd street, except one is by 9th ave and one is by 2nd ave. You can't go wrong no matter where you happen to want to eat ramen in the Midtown area. The price is even more fair than what you get at Ippudo, so I can't complain at all. 2nd ave is a little out of the way normally for me, but it's worth it if you're close by.
Hide-Chan Ramen
248 East 52nd Street.
New York, NY 10022
212-813-1800
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so I tried to go to Hide Chan on Saturday afternoon for a late lunch as a break from biking but they don't start serving food until 5:30! Ended up going to a Turkish diner on 2nd Ave (which was pretty good, and cheap). Sounds like it's worth going back when they are actually serving food.
Ang
October 27, 2010 10:38 pm
I totally feel your frustration, also for restaurants who don't update menus on their websites. I might be all excited about this dish, but might turned out not available or the price has raised.
@Ang - what's this Turkish diner you visited? Was it Taksim (that this is more a restaurant than a diner)? I love Turkish salad and the bread. Oh...the bread... hehe
kim
October 28, 2010 10:16 am
@Ang,
Yea that happened to Steph and me too. we tried going for lunch but they only do lunch on the weekdays. On the weekends they only do dinner... kind of a bummer, but it's pretty worth it if you're in the area during the weekdays.
@kim,
Yea it's a shame that restaurants are getting into twitter or whatever but don't get into the information on their website. Just goes to show, people update what's easy to update, not what the people necessarily want to see.
Danny
October 28, 2010 3:18 pm