I had visited Ippudo twice before this time throughout my whole life, once in London and once in the East Village. This original post just had a comment of “Overrated and pricey. I’d skip here any day of the week. Daikokuya in LA is way better”. Because I didn’t take pics of my dinner nearly 4 years ago, I thought about revisiting this Midtown location to try to remember why I was underwhelmed.

The Blue Ribbon chain is known for their seafood and sushi. So it was interesting to see them coming out with the fried chicken venture. This has been around for a while, and for the last few years, friends have raved about it. We got the 4 piece mixed with fries basket. The chicken itself is pretty tender and juicy. The skin is lightly crisped and doesn’t have the batter thickness that something like KFC or Popeyes has.

I’m introducing a new category for restaurants that have gardens. This one has an interesting one. I didn’t find it particularly that great, but it seems to be an attraction for others. This is tucked near or in the Standard Hotel, I don’t quite remember. In the summer, the indoor seats are mostly vacant, so definitely ask for a seat near the window if you decide to sit inside.

The clams were OK. The Nola clams were better than the casino. The casino was so oversalted by the bacon such that you couldn’t taste the clams at all. The shrimp beignets were forgotten. The most memorable items were the crawfish dip and the cornbread. The crawfish dip was really good and had a lot of flavor to it. The cornbread was super buttery and was nice as well.

This place’s beef noodles was just OK. I’ve had better. The portion size is just ok. I also got a side of bean curd, and it was a little on the salty side.

Decent Japanese snack place with okonomiyaki and octopus balls. But that’s about it.

Got the rare strip. It was pretty good for $30 for 14 oz. Not a lot of fat on it. I think the price keeps getting cheaper because not a lot of people go to this.

Different cooking styles for all types of oysters. Was pretty good.

It’s just ok.

Recommended by Totto Ramen server for best thick noodle in NYC. Soup was bad and salty. But yeah the noodle was pretty good.