Nibbling around the edges in Asian Fort Lee

Ramen Setagaya, one of the newerJapanese restaurants in Fort Lee, has expanded its menu and begun offering discounts and free food to lure customers during the week, below.

I've been enjoying the wide array of Asian food in Fort Lee for more than a decade -- at both new and well-established restaurants.

The restaurant scene is constantly changing, reflecting the large infux of Korean immigrants, but new Japanese restaurants have opened to serve the borough's original Asian community.

The Cheap Beer Depot on Route 4 in Fort Lee is closed, above, but the no-luggage Courtesy Motel remains open to some of the worst reviews ever, below. One tourist compared his room to a jail cell. I enjoyed many great meals in the motel's Japanese restaurant, where the female servers wore traditional outfits, but it closed several years ago.

The Japanese restaurant was on the first floor. I got a kick out of  motel guests walking in, looking over the menu of sushi and other items, and asking if the restaurant served steak and a baked potato.

Ramen Setagaya opened on Main Street in Fort Lee, around the corner from the well-established Batten Ramen on Center Avenue.

Prices for ramen, the noodle soup that has achieved cult status in Japan, are similar at both restaurants, but Batten Ramen is cash only.

We had an early dinner on Saturday at Ramen Setagaya, which is a branch of a small restaurant chain in Manhattan and Japan. 

Spicy Miso Ramen at Ramen Setagaya, above, and Deep Fried Oyster, below.

My wife ordered the delicious Spicy Miso Ramen ($11), which also is available on the vegetarian menu with tofu instead of pork.

The spicy ramen is the closest thing to her favorite Korean soft-tofu stew, which she always order "more spicy."

I ordered Deep Fried Oyster ($5.50), and got 4 plump orbs with molten interiors and non-greasy exteriors.

We shared Seafood Goyza ($5) and Shumai ($5), steamed shrimp dumplings.

Gyoza are available with several fillings.

Shumai with a dipping sauce.

Tofu Salad with sesame dressing.

The one disappointment was the Tofu Salad ($4.50), which is made mostly with forgettable iceberg lettuce.

Pepper oil and hot pepper flakes at Ramen Setagaya.

Free parking for Batten Ramen is available in the claustrophobic basement parking garage around the corner from its Center Avenue entrance.

Ramen Setagaya, 243 Main St., Fort Lee; 201-585-0739. BYO, metered street parking, closed Sundays. American Express cards not accepted.

Batten Ramen, 2024 Center Ave., in the Oak Tree Center, Fort Lee; 201-461-5465. BYO, open 7 days, cash only.

Ramen battle is on in Fort Lee

Spicy Miso Ramen at Ramen Setagaya in Fort Lee.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The slurping of soup noodles has become especially loud near Main Street and Center Avenue in Fort Lee.

For more than a decade, Batten Ramen has slung authentic Japanese noodle soup, gyoza and other dishes in a no-frills setting on Center Avenue.

About 3 months ago, a branch of Ramen Setagaya, a popular Manhattan ramen spot, opened around the corner on Main Street, though you might have trouble finding it, because there still is no sign on the storefront.

Both Ramen Setagayas are outposts of a well-known chain in Japan.

The new place offers eight flavors of ramen at lunch and dinner, compared to five at Batten Ramen, including a kid's portion with fried chicken.

Ramen is based on a slow-cooked pork broth filled with chewy wheat noodles, topped with seaweed, sliced pork, egg, corn, vegetables or other garnishes.

Ramen Setagaya is a bit more expensive, but claims to serve "100% natural ingredients" with no MSG. The menu boasts of special sea salt and soy sauce imported from Japan.

I had lunch there on Thursday with my teen-age son, and the Asian man next to us made loud slurping noises as he sucked the soup noodles into his mouth -- a sign that he was really enjoying himself.

Ramen Setagaya offers table and counter seating.

The kitchen is behind large glass panels.

The man was having the set $13 menu -- a bowl of Shio or Syo-yu Ramen with Buta-don (sliced pork and rice), Curry Rice or Gyoza (Japanese dumplings).

We were the only non-Asian customers in the restaurant.

Two young, enthusiastic servers did a great job, but the volume on a flat-screen TV was annoyingly high as it repeatedly played a Japanese video on how ramen is made.

My son ordered Spicy Miso Ramen (soybean-paste flavor) with barbecued pork, bean sprouts, bamboo shoot, corn and half of a nearly hard-boiled egg ($10.50).

He said it was seriously spicy, reminding him of the spicy Korean instant ramyun he is addicted to.

I tried some of the noodles from his soup, and found them deliciously firm and chewy, far superior to any instant noodle soup.

Because I don't eat meat and I'm cutting down on carbohydrates, I ordered Seafood Gyoza ($5); Shumai, another dumpling filled with minced shrimp ($5), and Menma-zara, a bamboo-shoot salad ($3).

Gyoza are available with three different fillings.

A crunchy salad of Salt Taste Bamboo Shoots.

I once ate ramen regularly at Batten Ramen, either with my wife and son or with a friend who lived in Japan for three years and taught English at a junior high school.

I also liked other items on the Batten Ramen menu, including rice balls.

Batten Ramen serves only pan-fried pork goyza, but when I ate meat, I loved its version of this popular dumpling.

When Saigon R opened in a small storefront in Englewood, where I lived at the time, we discovered Vietnamese anise-flavored pho with rice noodles, and never looked back.

On Thursday in Fort Lee, I walked around the corner to pick up a takeout menu at Batten Ramen, and noticed it had more customers than the challenger. 

Ramen Setagaya, 243 Main St., Fort Lee; 201-585-0739. BYO, no American Express cards. Metered parking.

Batten Ramen, 2024 Center Ave., on the street side of Oak Tree Center, Fort Lee; 201-461-5465. BYO, cash only. Free parking in small underground garage.

 

Guess how much salt is in your ramen?

Tonkotsu ramen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I stopped at the Japanese supermarket in Edgewater on Saturday to sample several kinds of ramen, but was shocked to see how much sodium was listed on the ingredients labels.


Three Japanese companies -- Myojo, Sun Noodle and Yamachan -- set up stands near Mitsuwa's food court and handed out small cups of the ramen they make in the United States.


There were nine varieties of fresh noodles and condensed soup available for purchase at small discounts, but one of the servings contained close to 100% of the daily recommended sodium intake and two others ranged from about 120% to more than 140%.


I have never seen that much salt in a processed food product.


I bought two 2-serving packages of the refrigerated ramen, one from Myojo with 48% sodium and another from Sun Noodle with 65% ($3.69 each).


Those packages had the lowest sodium of the nine varieties of ramen for sale.


My son's favorite spicy Korean soup -- Shin Ramyun Gourmet Spicy Noodle Soup -- contains dried noodles, but only 43% sodium.


He usually asks for it at breakfast, eats all the noodles and dumps most of the red broth -- and the salt -- down the drain.


In related news, a second new Japanese restaurant will be opening soon in Fort Lee, according to a sign I saw in a Main Street storefront.


Ramen Setagaya, a branch of a Manhattan restaurant of the same name, will open around the corner from Batten Ramen, an inexpensive, cash-only BYO on Center Avenue that has served ramen and other Japanese dishes for many years.


The new restaurant will join Yamagata, a high-end Japanese sushi spot in a strip mall on Palisade Avenue.


In recent years, restaurants opening in Fort Lee have been almost exclusively Korean.


Mitsuwa Marketplace, 595 River Road, Edgewater; 
201-941-9133. American Express cards not accepted.