Post 4th of July Part 1:Ippudo and a blind item

Greetings folks, I hope all is well. This past Sunday I was recovering from my post 4th of July activities. No. It was not from a hangover. It was from Remen. Yes you heard me Remen, to be specific Remen from Ippudo.

When I first heard of Ippudo from the Gothamist I was quite intrigued. If you know me, which most of you don't, I am a remen freak. So I decided to go to Ippudo with a friend of mine during the 4th of July weekend.

I want to get something clear, I am not bagging on Ippudo, it is a great restaurant with great decor and great service. My friend and I were seated immediately as soon as we arrived. There was a delay in ordering on our part because we were waiting for the menus until the waitress pointed out at that what I thought was the wine list was actually the menu.

I would have loved to have sat at the Remen bars that were set up in the main area of the restaurant but we were instead seated near the cashier area which actually wasn't that bad.


It was a pretty mixed crowd of young people and family. I also spotted some some people taking pictures of their dishes which led me to believe they were food bloggers or were sending their pictures to food bloggers.

We both ordered the Shiromaru Classic and stuck to that even though the waitress was pushing us to add some braised pork. Upon the arrival of the food, I handed over my portion of the pork to my amigo since I don't eat meat and began to dig in.

In all honesty, the noodles are damn good. Fresh,chewy and quite slurpy. In fact they are of better quality then Momofuku and you get more bang for your buck at Ippudo in terms of portion size. With extra broth leftover we ordered a second portion of noodles. Of course it would have been better if we got a cracked egg. One thing that makes Remen kick ass, even the instant stuff, is a cracked egg.

So what's the big deal? Well here's where it gets hairy. The next day I could barely move. My sinuses were all dried up and my head felt like it had been in a vise. The funny thing was that these sensations felt very familiar to me. But I just couldn't put my finger on why I was feeling like this.

I went down the list of things I ate yesterday which included half the products from Trader Joe's. However, I have never gotten ill from eating them. Not yet. I whittled it down to the Remen at Ippudo. But it wasn't food poisoning. The food was quite fresh and I wasn't throwing up. But there was something in the food that gave me this migraine from hell. Then I realized it. MSG.

My symptoms indicated a classic case of the MSG headache that made Chinese takeout so infamous back in the day.

Where do they put the MSG? It has to be in that delicious broth of theirs since it is what flavors the remen. And it is a common hiding place for MSG.

I am sure if they are confronted, Ippudo will deny using MSG and the only way to be truly sure is to send a sample of their broth to a lab for analysis. If any of you want to take up the challenge be my guest.

For good remen, I would highly recommend the place. However, those of you who are MSG sensitive, be warned, the next day after eating a bowl you will want to stay in bed.


I would like to end with a blind item.

Which landmarked building is subject of a deal closing today? It appears their foreign investors are quite happy parking their money in this building. However, it will be business as usual since the other shareholder is still maintaining the operations of this particular building.