Kambi – 351 E 14th St between 1st and 2nd Avenue (As of the writing of this, Google street view is outdated)

Kambi Ramen

My girlfriend and I go to Minca every other week now, and we’re trying to go to a different restaurant during the off week.  We only slightly extended ourselves this past week because we went to Minca’s sister (brother?) restaurant Kambi. Same owner and same menu. Or is it…?

I consider myself something of a ramen connoisseur but not exactly a food expert. I like watching cooking shows like Iron Chef and Hell’s Kitchen, but I don’t think I necessarily have a great palate or understanding of subtle nuances of spices and flavors. That said I think that are some distinct differences between Kambi and Minca’s ramen. We did notice though that some of the staff from Minca were over at Kambi.

Kambi itself is more spacious than Minca. Minca seats I’d say at most 20 people if that. Kambi looked like it could seat 30+ people. As of the writing of this review Kambi doesn’t have a license to sell liquor so we couldn’t get our usual hot sake and Sapporo. Maybe they’ll get one in the future. We still ordered our pork gyoza and “Basic” ramen. The menu of Minca and Kambi is the same in content and format.

First thing I usually check for at Minca is how brown the egg is because it can vary between visits. Sometimes it’ll look lighter and sometimes it’ll be a nice dark and rich brown color which I always look forward to eating last. Kambi’s brown egg wasn’t very brown when we went, and maybe it could be browner other days but looking on flickr they all look about the same. You can even see it’s not fully brown in their business card.

Notice how the center of the brown egg is pretty much white

I admit there are times when I think that I’m just convincing myself a brown egg tastes different from a regular hard-boiled egg, but it really does make a difference. When I ate the brown egg I knew instantly that it was different, but I couldn’t quite tell what it was. My girlfriend said later that it was bonito flake tasting. Basically Kambi’s brown eggs are the quicker faster version of brown eggs. An example recipe for these kinds of brown eggs uses bonito flakes, cooking sake, mirin, sugar, soy sauce and water. These only takes 12 hours or so to make. The result is a weaker flavor than the real meaty brown eggs Minca has.

Minca and Kambi both give a choice of thick or thin noodles. We get the thin noodles. Kambi’s seemed to be yellower than Minca’s so I think they were eggier kind of noodles that didn’t have quite the same bite. Again, this is something that could be different day to day. Good noodles I think have a good chewy texture kind of the same with good rice. Not entirely weak, but not hard.

The pork I don’t think I could really tell the difference between, it was still very melty and tasted very good. If I thought there was any difference in this case it’s probably because I wanted to believe I tasted a difference.

The last difference is in the broth. It’s a rare occasion that I can finish all of the broth at Minca without feeling explodey. It’s just very rich and thick. I finished most of the broth at Kambi and didn’t feel explodey at all. I think their broth isn’t as fatty or thick. Sometimes at Minca when I take enough of a break I get that skin that forms on top of the soup but it didn’t happen at Kambi. My girlfriend was also commenting on the fact that her lips didn’t feel as sticky after eating Kambi’s ramen. The broth was still good, but definitely not quite as rich.

Still a very good bowl of ramen, but we’re going to stick to Minca of course. Before I went I saw some reviews on Yelp.com that looked roughly similar to Minca’s criticisms. Things like how the broth didn’t seem to have flavor or that it was too thick, that just confirmed for me that it was still going to be like Minca. Those people are crazy, they’re probably just used to shio ramen (salt based) or something. I think I’ve seen preferences for Menkui-te or Setagaya on reviews for Minca and Kambi and those people are definitely crazy. Setagaya at least is exclusively ramen, but their broth is nothing to compare and same goes for Menkui-te. Before I started going to Minca regularly I went to Menkui-te quite a bit, but it doesn’t compare in terms of richness and flavor. Plus Menkui-te takes FOREVER to get you hot sake.

I’d say if you’re in the area and want a good bowl of ramen it’s still worth going to, but Minca is still the place to beat!