New York City: Momofuku Noodle Bar (January 2015)

My spouse and I dined at Momofuku Noodle Bar on a Sunday afternoon in mid-January 2015. Noodle Bar does not accept reservations, except for its large-format meals (available for parties of six or more). We arrived at Noodle Bar just prior to 12:00 noon, when the restaurant opens for business, and already a line of about 10 guests had formed. Noodle Bar is open daily for lunch and dinner.

Momofuku Noodle Bar is located on First Avenue (between 10^th and 11^th Streets) in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan. The restaurant contains blonde-wood low tables and stools, and two counters with barstools: one counter serves drinks, and the other is the food prep counter; diners eat at both spaces. The restaurant offers a coat check area, and two unisex restrooms are located at the back of the restaurant.

David Chang is the chef/owner of the Momofuku restaurant group, which includes Noodle Bar. Momofuku means “lucky peach”. Other NYC restaurants include Ko (see our separate review from May 2011), Ssam Bar (see our separate review from July 2013), Ma Peche (see our separate review from January 2011), and Booker and Dax. Chang also operates a restaurant in Sydney, Australia called Seiobo (see our separate review from August 2012). Four additional restaurants are located in Toronto, Canada. We are huge David Chang admirers, and we try to dine at as many of his restaurants as possible.

We ordered two types of buns to start: al pastor (pork shoulder accented by guacamole, pineapple, and cilantro) and brisket (served with pickled red onions, cucumber, and horseradish mayonnaise). We then ordered the Momofuku ramen (which contained shredded pork shoulder, a slice of pork belly, and a poached egg), and the ginger scallion noodles (which contained no meat, but instead, plenty of scallions, pickled shitake mushrooms, cucumbers, and white cabbage). For dessert, we shared the sampler, which contained a cookie called “The Ritz” (which contained a bit of everything), truffled pretzel bites, and Milk Bar soft-serve peanut butter and strawberry ice cream. (The pretzel bites were the best, with a salty coating, covering a moist, dense cake!) We also ordered a spiced pear slushy to try, which we thought would contain liquor but did not (the green tea slushy was listed on the menu followed by an asterisk symbol, which indicated that it was non-alcoholic; because the pear slushy did not contain the asterisk, we assumed that it contained some type of alcohol, but it did not). No matter, it was delicious anyway, although a size small was not large enough to share!

Service was a bit perfunctory, and we felt particularly rushed toward the end of our meal. (It seems like the restaurant allots customers about one hour to eat, and then they encourage them to move along.) Although we wish that it had lasted longer, we loved our lunch at Momofuku Noodle Bar, and we would love to return!