Minca, the Japanese ramen shop in the East Village, is a cozy spot where you can stuff your belly with heaping chopstick-fulls of noodles and fill all your bodily tubes with meaty broth. The basic bowling ball-sized bowl of ramen comes topped with seaweed, sliced hard boiled egg, bamboo shoots, chopped scallions and sliced pork.
If your only experience eating ramen is with the limp, "so thin it's nearly translucent" instant variety, you need to get a real bowl (albeit, one that may cost 1000% more than the instant kind) of endlessly long, slightly firm, fresh medium-thick noodles.
The toroniku ramen features the same toppings as the basic ramen with the addition of large thick chunks of raw chopped cabbage and thick fatty slabs of slow cooked pork. If the soft-as-an-angel's-bum pork fibers and accompanying layer of glistening fat aren't enough to satiate you, the surprisingly thick Kumamoto style pork soup -- flavored with salt & garlic oil -- will coat your stomach with a rich, swine-based film.
Despite the heaviness of the meal, we miraculously finished our bowl of pork-laden noodles without much intestinal discomfort, so comfortable in fact that we were able to top it off with a few scoops of ice cream. However, skipping lunch may have had something to do with that. We would gladly go back to Minca whenever the ramen craving hits, making sure to prepare our stomach beforehand.
Minca is located at 536 E 5th St between Avenue A and B. 212-505-8001
