Spending a morning in blustery AC, an afternoon on the train and an evening on Broadway I figured the perfect thing would be a dinner of noodles. And one of the spots I kept hearing a lot about was Totto Ramen, a sixteen seater on 52nd Street. No reservations like most (all?) noodle places meant we’d probably be in for a long wait. But we were going on Sunday, at 5:30, in the rain. There couldn’t possibly be a line right? Wrong.
But we finally got seated and started off with a Musubi and the uni yaki special (seared sea urchin on a bed of rice and lots of other goodies like freshly grated wasabi thrown in as well.
The table next to us also got the uni yaki and didn’t eat the uni. Hello – that was the entire point and the sole ingredient that drove up the cost of the dish. I envisioned leaning over and scooping up their uni and dropping it on my own bed of rice but figured it was a little intrusive and a tiny bit gross. But that only barely contained me.
Next was on to the noodle part of the dinner (yay) where we both got the spicy totto ramen.
Let me tell you, it was a little spicy – who would have thought? But so good!
Some other things to note: they only accept cash. And don’t go in large groups. That’s just dumb. The group of 6 in front of me stomped off after being told it would take hours to seat all of them. I mean come on. Meanwhile, I was giddy thinking – wahoo 6 less people in front of me!
So all in all I dub it 4 musubis, because while I still like momofuku’s better, the price is much more likable at Totto Ramen.
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