11.27.4
Tomoe
172 ThompsonGreenwich Village, between Houston and Bleecker
Despite my idol Jeffery Steingarten's highly negative review of Tomoe (he calls it "super sushi") I'm more than willing to wait in the long lines outside, even in the middle of winter, with the rest of the chumps, for some of what I believe is the among best Japanese food I know of in this city and certainly the best bowl of ramen I've been able to find here. (And I've been to a few of the specialty noodle places here: Rai Rai Ken, Honmura An, Soba Ya, Momofuku - they each have their charms, but none of them have the perfect cloudy saltiness of Tomoe's miso ramen, the noodles gone translucent from cooking, the delicious toasted sesame seeds on top. Though to digress further, I do think my trip to Ryowa in Mountain View, CA may have spoiled me for all other ramen before or since.)
The night before Thanksgiving, A. and I went again. For once, the restaurant had empty seats at dinnertime - it was more than half empty, even. Service and preparation was listless (green tea was lukewarm, the soup stock for my ramen was watered-down, and the mayonnaise in my spicy scallop roll was unflavored) but the pieces of fish were huge and fresh as always, reinforcing my feeling that even on an off night, this place is worth going to.
