Mitsuwa Marketplace

Today I decided I wanted to get out of the city for the afternoon, so I took a shuttle from Port Authority to Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater, New Jersey.

I've been to Mitsuwa in San Jose and Irvine as well, and each location isn't just a supermarket; it's more of a one-block Japan Town, with a Sanseido bookstore, Shiseido shop, and food court.

The food court

Mitsuwa is most famous for Santouka ramen, which I eat every time I come here. I got the spicy miso ramen with pork cheek and an ikura-don (salmon roe over rice) for $16--it's pricy, but it would be a lot more expensive in Manhattan.

The pork cheek is amazingly fatty and juicy, but I find that the noodles are a bit more al dente than I'd like. I definitely recommend Santouka if you want food better than Ippudo and a line shorter than Totto Ramen (the pork cheek is also much better than any of the meats in the Mega/Niku Ramen at Totto).

After lunch, I got an obanyaki with cream filling. The cream was light and not too milky--just the way I like it--but the outside crust(?) was soft and had a plasticky texture. It also had this weird savory quality to it; I can't quite place my finger on it, but it tasted like kombu broth.

The supermarket

I love the supermarket for the Japanese snacks. Although they're not much cheaper than other Asian marts in Manhattan (M2M, Sunrise Mart), Mitsuwa has a much larger selection, and it just feels cleaner buying stuff from here than from dingy little East Village and Chinatown shops. (Have you ever visited Hong Kong Supermarket? You know what I mean).

The supermarket also has an amazing selection of beauty and household products. The beauty products here are actually a bit more expensive than stores in Chinatown ($19 for a bottle of Oshima Tsubaki oil vs. $16), but you come here for the variety.

The produce here is so beautiful and fresh and cheap!

Perfect, unblemished potatoes and cabbage!

The bookstore

Sanseido sells Japanese books and magazines exclusively, so it isn't much fun for me to shop in; the only English books are the likes of The Art of Zen. The stationary section is quite limited (and expensive for the quality) too--you're better off shopping at Muji for your Japanese pens and diaries.

***********

Mitsuwa is great if you want to get out of the city for some good ramen and to stock up on Asian snacks. The shuttle is $3.00 each way (except Wednesdays and Thursdays, when shuttle service is free from Manhattan!) and takes about 30 minutes from Port Authority. If you can, try to go during the weekday; on weekends the food court is super packed!

Mitsuwa
http://mitsuwa.com/
Hours: Everyday 9:30am to 9:00pm, restaurants 11:00am to 8:00pm
*Free shuttle service on Wednesday and Thursday!*

The Meatball Shop

I went to the Meatball Shop on a cold rainy day--I needed something homey and rich.

The menus here are super cute; you get a laminated menu and a dry-erase marker and check the items you want.

I got the spicy pork meatballs with mushroom gravy with rigatoni--it's a really unattractive plate of food, but it was really nice and satisfying, and the pasta was perfectly al dente. However, one criticism I have is that there isn't really a balance; everything is heavy and savory. From the meatballs to the sauce to the sides, there isn't a single item that is on the lighter side (except the "Simple Salad" and "Market Salad," but why would you get that here? You could make that yourself). I recommend getting spaghetti or rigatoni (instead of risotto) under the meatballs, since the sauce can get very salty.

For dessert, I got an ice cream sandwich with brownie walnut cookies and mint ice cream. This thing was, like, four feet tall.

The cookies were beyond mediocre--they're dry and crumbly and not very flavorful. However, the ice cream was amazing. It's everything you want from mint ice cream: it's actually made with mint and tastes like mint, as opposed to the horrible generic artificial green ice cream. If you don't like mint ice cream, this one could change your mind.

I'm not one to factor service into my opinions of restaurants--I think a restaurant is really defined by its food--but my experience the last time I came here was so terrible that I have to share it:

Each plate of meatballs comes with a toothpick (I'm not sure why... you already have a fork) but mine didn't. While I was eating the risotto, which came under the meatballs, I bit into part of a broken toothpick that got mixed into the risotto, and immediately told our server, who then pretty much said that I just wasn't careful and ate the meatball and the toothpick in one bite. Ten minutes later, she came back and said, "Well, because of your, um, thing, I'll get you guys some desserts." Should've been free right? She charged us for it.

So, in short, I almost swallowed half of a broken toothpick, and I got charged for an ice cream sandwich in return. It was only $5.00, but come on.

But, the food is still nice and I still came back. I would come for lunch, though, since this place is absolutely packed for dinner, with an hour-long wait that is hell in New York winter weather.

The Meatball Shop

http://www.themeatballshop.com/

Hours: Saturday to Wednesday 12:00pm to 2:00am, Thursday to Friday 12:00pm to 4:00am

Momofuku Milk Bar

Milk Bar is right across the street from Momofuku Ssam Bar, which is why Ssam Bar doesn't offer dessert!

Momofuku Milk Bar is most famous for the compost cookie and the crack pie, both of which I got.

The crack pie, I think, is the most oversimplified item on the menu. The filling is butter, sugar, cream, and egg yolk, which is quite off-putting for some people but is also the point of the item: it is a blend of everything that is good about dessert. But to balance the buttery sweetness of the filling is the crust, which is salty and made with oats (which also adds some texture to an otherwise smooth, creamy pie). It's sticky, light, and the pie equivalent of a sugar cookie.

The compost cookie is just a mix of everything: chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, potato chips, coffee grounds, graham crumbs, and pretzels. People will usually make faces when they hear the potato chips and coffee grounds part, but all the flavors meld together to make a really balanced cookie. All the add-ins are fine enough that you don't get one very large chunk of anything. The texture is perfect; the edges are quite crisp and chewy, and the center is malleable and soft.

I feel like many of the other items on the menu are overlooked. My favorite underdog is the blueberry and cream cookie, which is pretty much a soft plain cookie with blueberries.

Overall, I really like Momofuku Milk Bar. Although the items and combinations are unusual, each dessert is really balanced and mild--I hate when a dessert is overly sweet. I will definitely come back when it's warmer to try the ice cream and milkshake!

Momofuku Milk Bar
http://milkbarstore.com/
Hours vary by location