Eating Through NYC: Part 3

I like to read about where people have been, but a significant interest for me lies in the food from those places. Although I often run out of ways to describe what something tasted like, I hardly shy away from sharing. Am I your expert guide to food in NYC? that’s a hard no, but I’m that person who’ll recommend good food to you based on my experiences; no doubt. 

So, from a person you probably don’t know well enough to call a friend, here’s the 3rd installment in my NYC food diaries.

Ivan Ramen: Ivan Orkin’s place is one of the few restaurants [read as the only restaurant] on Netflix’s Chef’s Table that’s within my price range. Well within it since the most expensive item there is under $20. If you watch Chef’s Table, you’ll know that the featured restaurants usually have Michelin stars, are booked weeks in advance, and meals can start at around $200. Granted, most of them aren’t serving ramen.Excited to visit at least one restaurant from the show, I indulged in a piping hot, spicy and well-seasoned bowl of ramen. I ordered the Spicy Red Chili Ramen while my boyfriend ordered the Chicken Paitan. The flavors in both were incredible [Paitan edges out Spicy Red though] and only developed more depth as I got to the end of the bowl. Had we not been in a public place, I would have licked my bowl.Pork buns came out as starters but the star of the afternoon was the broth. As far as I’m concerned, noodles are the side dish in ramen. The broth is what makes ramen worth the try, and Ivan + his team know their way around a broth. I wanted to pack ours in bottles to be used in all my pasta dishes.

Doughnut Plant: An unplanned stop on the way to Ivan Ramen brought us to this bakery that specializes in cake donuts. Pretending we hadn’t just eaten Krispy Kreme earlier in the afternoon, we stopped in for a pre-lunch snack.

This stop was motivated by a recommendation I got from NYC-based bloggers Lynn & Justin of Mad Hatters NYC. I was raving about Dough donuts here and they commented saying they had a preference for Doughnut Plant. I was curious to find out if their preference would become mine.We ordered 2 crème brûlée donuts [not pictured because I ate first before pulling out my phone] filled with a creamy custard. They were crispy on the outside and warm and soft on the inside. If taste buds could sing, mine would have belted out a happy song. I’m still on the fence about my preference though. For now, Dough & Doughnut Plant are tied.

Keki Modern Cakes: Social media is a great resource for finding places to eat, and it’s what brought us to Keki Modern Cakes; a hole-in-the-wall bakery in NYC’s Chinatown. It’s a good thing they have all of 10 items to order because 10 adults can barely fit in the store at a time. We were curious to taste their famous bouncy pastry so we ordered the modern Japanese cheesecake and the cremewich.I have probably described pastry with the words light and airy and said that it melts in my mouth but after tasting the cheesecake from here, I’m convinced I was lying. This cake was softer than a marshmallow and absolutely DELICIOUS; it was gone by the end of the night. If Cheesecake Factory made cheesecakes like this, I’d be there every month. It’s the most unique cake I’ve ever tasted. We went there around 5pm on a Saturday and were out with our cakes in under 5 minutes.

Have you been to any of these places in NYC? Which was your favorite? If you haven’t, which would you most be willing to try? Let me know with a comment. 

As always, 

thank you for reading. 

All photos shot and edited on iPhone8+

If you liked this post, you can read my other NYC & NOLA food diaries here & here.

Same Footprints, Different Sands