My spouse and I dined at Hide Chan Ramen for dinner on a
Friday evening in early December 2017. Hide Chan is open daily for lunch and
dinner, until at least 10:00 pm or 11:00 pm depending on the day of the week.
(The exception is Sunday, when the restaurant closes at 9:00 pm.) Hide Chan
does not appear to accept reservations.
The Midtown West/Hell’s
Kitchen location of Hide Chan Ramen opened in fall 2010 on West 53rd
Street between 9th and 8th Avenues. Another Manhattan
location of Hide Chan is in the Midtown East neighborhood on West 52nd
Street. The original restaurant is located in Hakata Japan, where the chef is
from originally. In 2002, the chef opened the first Hide Chan outside of Hakata
in Tokyo, then he later opened 13 more shops throughout Japan before opening in
the US.
Hide Chan offers
several places to dine. You enter the restaurant in the bar/lounge area, where
you can sit at a stool at the L-shaped drinks bar, or at one of a few high-top
communal tables near the front windows. You can also dine in the main dining
room, which offers an open window into the kitchen where you can glimpse a peek
of the chefs at work. The furniture is light blonde wood, which provides a
backdrop for bright kitschy Japanese décor such as the colorful masks that hang
on one wall of the main dining room, the row of paper lanterns suspended over
the drinks bar, and the open shelving behind the bar displaying myriad sake
bottles that forms a sort of screen divider between the rooms.
Hide Chan serves
ramen and other Japanese food. Its specialty is its house made tonkotsu (pork
bone) ramen, with thin straight noodles (alternatively, you can choose wavy
noodles). We shared the fried chicken, dumplings, and steamed buns
as an appetizer. (Note that the buns come one to an order; we didn’t realize,
so we had to share the tasty nibble.) We then ordered two bowls of ramen. We
washed it down with Sapporo and a mini metal can of cold imported Japanese
sake.
We enjoyed our dinner at Hide Chan Ramen – the atmosphere
is casual and fun and the food is great!
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