Ramen – Eat Now Run Later

We woke up at 5:00am on a Saturday to get ready for our 7:00am Amtrak train to Richmond. Unfortunately, our train was an hour and 15 minutes late getting to Union Station. It was fine, though, as it allowed us to walk around the station a few times before sitting on the train for over 2 hours.

Richmond Main Street is one of the nicest, cleanest Amtrak stations that we have ever been to. The station itself is one of our favorite parts of visiting Richmond. We left and walked straight to one of our all-time favorite lunch places, Grace Noodle. Marnay got miso ramen with ground pork and I got a rich vegetable ramen. I am getting right now hungry thinking about it! On top of everything, the place is ridiculously inexpensive.

While it was almost 100 degrees outside, we were prepared for it and went for a walk to the Manchester neighborhood, on the south side of the James River. We normally like to organize activities ahead of time, but this was completely unplanned. We stumbled across a train museum with a huge model train set which volunteers had spent years building. We also found a modern art exhibit space called ArtWorks Richmond in a former industrial space. In general, Richmond is doing an excellent job taking obsolete factories and turning them into lofts, artists spaces, etc. Thirsty after all of this walking and exploring, we headed to BlueBee Cider and enjoyed a drink.

Next on our jam packed Richmond adventure we ubered to Hardywood Brewing for some more cold ones and to take advantage of their air conditioning. We spent a lot of time at Hardywood enjoying the beer and staying cool.

By 4:00pm, we were absolutely starving, so we headed to the Roosevelt for our 5:00pm reservation. Before we actually got to dinner, we stopped across the street at Sub Rosa, an incredible bakery, for some baked goods to help tide us over. Our dinner at the Roosevelt was a tad inconsistent but we had a great roasted rockfish dish. Most importantly, we were full for our long train ride home.

Richmond is easily doable as a day trip from Silver Spring/DC. Plus if you take Amtrak like we did, you can sample as many drinks as the city has to offer without having to worry about driving home!

Places we visited
Grace Noodle: 1823 E Main Street Richmond, VA 23223
Old Dominion Railway Museum: 102 Hull Street Richmond, VA 23224
Art Works: 320 Hull Street Richmond, VA 23224
Blue Bee Cider: 212 W 6th Street Richmond, VA 23224
Hardywood Park Craft Brewery: 2408-2410 Ownby Lane Richmond, VA 23220
Sub Rosa: 620 N 25th Street Richmond, VA 23223
The Roosevelt: 623 N 25th Street Richmond, VA 23223

On a Tuesday night we made reservations at one of DC’s most popular new restaurants, Momofuku CCDC. This is the DC offshoot of David Chang’s extremely successful Momofuku empire. The restaurant offers limited reservations and we made ours’ a month out.

The space is rather bare, with concrete floors and not much on the walls. There is a giant peach projected above the bar, which is a nice touch. The curved wooden seats do not even have backs. My first impression was that this does not seem like a restaurant where guests are expected to linger. While we reviewed the food menu, we started off with some drinks. I got the Seven Spice Sour, which had some serious heat. It consisted of sake, yuzu, lime and shichimi, that ubiquitous reddish-orange spice found at Japanese restaurants. Marnay got a Grenache rose from Provence, the birthplace of rose.

Our food was coursed out, but it came fast. The first two dishes to arrive were the Shiitake Buns with hoisin, scallion and cucumber and the Rockfish crudo with yuzu, bonji and sliced apples. The shiitake buns tasted like they were filled with crispy bacon. It was incredible what they did with the mushrooms…it was pure magic.

There was no indication on the menu that the Rockfish would be raw until the server told us after we ordered. Not a problem, but a little warning on the menu would be nice. The paper thin slices of raw fish came with bonji sauce, a David Chang trademarked creation similar to soy sauce.

Very soon after these two dishes left the table, the famous Momofuku Ramen arrived. It is a pork based soup with sliced pork belly, pulled pork shoulder and a beautiful poached egg floating in the middle. Piercing the egg provides even more delicious richness to the broth. The bowl was substantial and even though we shared it, we were not able to finish.

Out of all the reasons to come to Momofuku CCDC, we were most excited to try dessert from Milk Bar. Trying their famous Cereal Milk ice cream is almost a cultural experience and we were looking forward to it. Honestly, though…we were a bit disappointed. I guess it tasted like milk-flavored soft-serve, but we thought there would be a lot more flavor. Same goes for the Compost Cookie that we ordered. It was good enough, but we were expecting great. Momufuku CCDC is not about to give Osteria Morini a run for its money as best restaurant for dessert in DC.

Outside of Milk Bar, Momofuku CCDC is very good. I think that the next time we go we will just get dessert from RareSweets. Or, if we’re feeling really adventurous, we will go to the bar at DBGB and order the Baked Alaska.

Best Bite
Paul: Shiitake Buns
Marnay: Momofuku Ramen

Address
Momofuku CCDC: 1090 I St, NW Washington, DC 20001
Closest Metro: Metro Center

Eat Now Run Later

Tag: Ramen

Ultimate Richmond Weekend

Momofuku CCDC