My niece Ariella, blogger of Champagne and A Dream, and I had an “ambitious” evening of dinner and a pre-screening of the new Chris Rock movie “Top Five” planned. Sounds great right? Well, it didn’t turn out as planned, the line was crazy long for the screening so we wouldn’t get in.

We basically started wandering on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, trying to figure out where to eat and what to do next. Finally took a cab, downtown to Gotham West Market and ended up at Ivan’s Slurp Shop. We both had it saved to our Foursquare lists of where to eat, so why not cross it off the list?

It’s relatively pricey for ramen, Ariella ordered the spicy red chili bowl and I got the vegetarian shoyu variety. it served with soy sauce, vegetable broth, enoki mushroom, roast tomato, and rye noodles. Hers came with dashi and chicken broth, minced pork, smashed egg, and rye noodle. It was delicious but definitely not filling for Ariella or I. I liked the rye noodles, it was my first time trying them, and I did slurp as encouraged. The broth was very light and flavorful but the portion size was not filling for either of us. Maybe we’ll try the rice bowls next time and won’t leave hungry. An aside to my aside was that they were playing “Warriors” on the flat screen, extremely cool!

Until our next rendezvous…

XOXO

Trudy