NYC: Ganso (CLOSED) – Ramen in Brooklyn

Update: Ganso is now closed. ROKC in Harlem and Hide-Chan in Midtown are two other really nice ramen shops in New York City.

When I was in New York last month, I met with Tina for lunch at Ganso. We’ve been to Ganso before, but they had just introduced their new menu, so I was curious to see, what it was like. Ramen still plays the lead, but in addition, you can also order some of the tempting-looking small dishes.

I usually go for a tonkotsu broth, as I like my ramen heavy and creamy, but it wasn’t available at Ganso, so instead I had a bowl of Spicy Soboro Miso ramen. Tina went for the slightly lighter Tori Shio ramen, which came with a clear, chicken-based broth. Both bowls of ramen were excellent and not too far from what you’ll expect to find at some of the ramen shops in Tokyo.

To my great pleasure, I found out that Ganso had the Japanese soft drink Ramune on the menu. The drink itself is like most sodas, carbonated and very sweet, but the bottle, which is sealed with a marble, is the reason why you’ll gladly pay twice as much for this stuff than for an ordinary Sprite. To be able to drink from the bottle, you have to push the marble downward from its fixed location in the neck of the bottle. Cool!