Most people hit up Sapporo when in need of a nice, big bowl of hot ramen. In a crowded noodle market, though, Sapporo doesn’t particularly hold up well against the competition (a fact proven again by this year’s reader poll.) Don’t count them out of your lunching rotation, though: The noodle joint also serves up several homey and delicious donburi (meal over rice) that make a trip to west 49th street very worth while.

A recent trip to Sapporo found me ordering the tanin-don ($9.00), which is like the often reported on oyako-don but with beef instead of chicken. Don’t expect chunky meat here: the beef is cut extremely thinly, almost like paper, with a little bit of fat still on the meat. Cooked with dashi, soy, a slightly runny egg and some greens, the meat sits atop sliced onions and a bed of well-cooked Japanese rice. The beautiful thing about the rice (in both this dish and the oyako-don) at Sapporo, is that it soaks up any loose liquid — both from the dashi and from the egg — giving the rice delicious flavor and creamy (but not mushy) texture.

Last year we wrote up Sapporo’s enjoyable oyako-don ($9.00). And, the tonkatsu ($10.00), while not technically donburi, got a thumbs up on this site as well. Other donburi offerings include pork or chicken katsu don, miso katsu don, gyu-don and mabo don all for $9.00, plus kimchee katsu don ($9.50). So, even if Sapporo isn’t your favorite place for a steaming bowl of ramen in this cold, wintry weather, it should still be a destination in your lunching repertoire for homey Japanese rice dishes that are sure to satisfy for under $10.

Sapporo, 152 W. 49th St., btw. 6th & 7th, 212-869-8972

I’m a huge Mapo Tofu fan. It’s genetic. My whole family loves it, my normally spice-adverse mom included. I don’t know how I missed this option on other visits to Sapporo, but it’s also gotten some love in the comments with Lunch’r Chip Beef saying back in ‘08:

Not a recent discovery, but the Mabo Ramen at Sapporo needs at least honorable mention here. For some reason it is perennially overlooked, even though in my opinion it is the best dish on the menu. I’ve been eating this for years, and actually have a very difficult time ordering anything else there, even though I go at least once a week.

A word of warning, the broth is very thick and oily, with a near-gelatinous texture, and is definitely not for everyone. But the play between the thick, scalding broth and the minced pork and tofu offers up an awesome stew-like result.

By and large I prefer the noodles and broths at Menchanko Tei, but this one, magical dish guarantees Sapporo my business, year after year. Everyone should try it at least once.

Not sure if that’s still true for Chip Beef (feel free to let us know in the comments!), but it certainly is a compelling endorsement.

When I got my order I was pleased that the noodles weren’t overdone (what can I say, I’m Italian, I’m hardwired for al dente). Interestingly the broth wasn’t thickened as Chip Beef described above, so it felt like less of a true Mapo Tofu/Ramen mashup, but it was less oily than I was expecting as well. If you’re expecting a lot of heat, you might be disappointed, I didn’t find this terribly spicy at all, though the little tidbits of ground pork seemed to pack a little bit of fire. The squares of tofu were good, but overall I wished there were more goodies in my soup (although part of this may be due to eating the ramen out of a takeout quart instead of a bowl where you’d have better control over the goodie distribution.) I did notice that Men Kui Tei also has Mabo Ramen on their menu–for 50 cents less! I might have to give that a try soon.

Has anyone else had the Mabo Ramen at Sapporo before? Has their recipe changed?

Sapporo, 152 W. 49th St., btw. 6th & 7th 212-869-8972

Come tax season it’s a tradition of mine to visit Cafe Zaiya (41st btw. Mad+5th) every time I go see my accountant (his office is just around the corner, lucky guy). But now with the addition of Sunrise Mart, deciding where to eat on 41st St just got a bit tougher- although on my most recent visit the fact that I hadn’t been to the new Sunrise Mart yet made the decision a bit easier. I walked straight to the back and ordered their oyakodon, the Japanese rice bowl with chicken and egg. I wanted to compare the version at Sunrise Mart to the version I had at Sapporo few weeks ago.

And then I realized I should probably go to Yagura too (the ugly duckling of the Japanese stores on that street).  After all, they serve oyakodon as well. So how do all 3 oyakodons compare to one another? Will I ever get tired of eating oyakodons? Let’s fine out.

One of the great things about Sunrise Mart is the open kitchen. You can stare at the guy making your lunch, and see exactly what he puts inside while he does it. Unlike Yagura and Sapporo, you have a choice of white or brown rice for your rice bowl. I stuck with white rice and moments after placing my order I got a fresh bowl of oyakodon (topped with pickled ginger and scallions).

The egg was a little bit drier than Sapporo’s but still runny. Instead of white meat they used dark meat (which I prefer) and the addition of the pickled ginger was a plus. Overall it was a satisfying bowl of oyakodon but for $7.57 I thought it was a bit pricey (even though it’s $1.20 less than Sapporo.)

Yagura, on the other hand, looks like it’s stuck in the 90s.  It’s not as fancy looking or shiny like Cafe Zaiya or Sunrise Mart but that shouldn’t deter you from checking it out. They do have a pretty solid food menu and a daily lunch special which is always a good thing.

For $5.93 (now that’s a good price!), the oyakodon here is just as good as the other two places. The egg mixture at Yagura was the driest but it was still quite fluffy and airy like a very well beaten omelette. Here they used dark meat as well (a tad dry though) and was served with some sort of pickled vegetable (small cucumber?) I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed eating the pickled vegetable especially with the rice, egg and chicken.

In the end I couldn’t really pick which version of oyakodon was the best, they all tasted really good. Sapporo cooked the egg the best with it’s perfect amount of runny-ness. Sunrise Mart was the most standard version but used dark meat and Yagura offered a fluffy egg topped with an interesting pickled vegetable. I guess if I had to really pick one I would pick Yagura. Why? Easy!  It was the cheapest. I also liked that their oyakodon was slightly different. Now I’m curious about the rest of the menu at Yagura and hope to do more comparisons with Sunrise Mart (and maybe Cafe Zaiya?!)

Sunrise Mart, 12 E. 41st (btw. Mad+5th), 646-380-9280
Yagura Japanese Grocery, 24 E 41st St. (btw. Mad+5th), 212-679-3777

Sapporo on 49th btw 6+7th holds a soft spot for me. This was THE very first place I had a good meal at when I first moved to the city (from Los Angeles.) I even remember walking down to Times Square to see Terminator 3 (I know I know after my meal there, and I’ve eaten there a few more times since then.  But every time I would get the ramen.  So when Chef Bill Telepan said he liked the cha-han last week and I saw that Amy preferred the tonkatsu curry rice dish over the ramen I realized I had never tried any of their rice dishes before.  Clearly I needed to change that.

I went around 2pm and the place was packed. Though the plus side of eating alone is that there will always be one seat left at the counter. I took the seat at the counter and ordered the oyakodon.

If you don’t know what oyakodon is, it is basically chicken cooked with onions and dashi. Then scrambled egg is added to the chicken and you serve it over rice. Don in Japanese is rice and oyako means parent and child or in this case chicken and egg. Sounds kind of wrong but taste oh so good and comforting. Add a dash of chili flakes and you’re good to go.

For $8.75 my bowl of oyakodon came piping hot and looked fantastic. The chicken, onion and egg mixture was cooked and flavored perfectly. The scrambled eggs were still a little bit runny (dried up scrambled eggs are just horrible) and the pieces of chicken were white meat and still juicy. Oyakodon is probably one of my favorite things to eat because it’s so simple and has most of my favorite ingredients in one bowl.

When I was going through the menu, I noticed a couple interesting rice dishes served in bowls of soup and were topped with meat. I might just have to make couple more trips to Sapporo to check them out.

Sapporo, 152 W. 49th St., btw. 6th & 7th 212-869-8972

With all the high profile new ramen spots that have opened in Midtown over the past year (Hide Chan, Totto Ramen) it’s good to see an old school spot get a little love… Eater asked Chef Bill Telepan to recommend an under the radar spot and he went with Sapporo (on 49th btw. 6+7th).

“[My wife and I] love the Shoyu Ramen with pork or she’ll get a veggie version. But one day I saw someone eating a rice dish that looked great, it’s called Cha-han, and it is a fried rice dish that I add pork to. It’s cheap, quick & yummy.”

Sapporo, 152 W. 49th St., btw. 6th & 7th 212-869-8972

After a month of renovations, Sapporo (on 49th btw. 5+6th) came back with a vengeance last month, and was even crowned Midtown’s best ramen by the Village Voice. I tend to avoid the ravenous packs at places that have just made some arbitrary “Best of New York” list, but the call of crispy fried noodles with special seafood ANKAKE sauce was strong, so, last week, I stopped to answer it. Check out the dishes after the jump.

Sapporo doesn’t do delivery, which is a pain in the ass pretty inconvenient, but you can call ahead and pick up your order. While this way does beat waiting for a table, don’t let the line discourage you. The wait is usually totally bearable- the day I was there it was about five minutes long, even though there were several parties clogging the entryway around 1PM.

The new space is staid, having lost the grungy charm of the pre-renovated Sapporo where customers were packed in elbow-to-elbow. Sure, you have more room to maneuver, but I prefer eavesdropping and having to fend off the splash of my neighbor’s noodle soup.

I ordered the Special Sapporo Ramen, which is noodles in miso flavored soup with an “extra portion” of sliced pork, minced pork, fishcake, mixed vegetables, corn, scallions, and spinach. I was disappointed to find “extra portion” really meant “normal portion for a 100 pound girl”. Admittedly, the ramen has great texture, but the soup is bland. I would go for another soup next time, like the Shio Ramen (which is a salt-flavored soup.)

But the real purpose of stopping by Sapporo was to try at least one dish off the new lunch menu. Clearly, the crispy fried noodles with special seafood ANKAKE sauce caught my eye because who can ignore “ankake” in caps? The dish arrived smothered in thick seafood sauce with squid, bamboo shoots, baby vegetables, and tiny shrimp. It was large enough to feed two. The noodles were crunchy as if they were baked, but didn’t have quite the crispy oiliness to be a convincing fried dish. My dad, who loves fried noodles, would have said the pan (ok, wok. He would’ve said wok.) lacks heat; I say this dish lacks flavor. There is a spoonful of wasabi to cut through – or liven up – that goopy seafood aftertaste, but that seems like cheating to me. Overall, the order was good, but not great. I’d try the noodles again if they were covered in beef and beef sauce.

The winner of the day was breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet with tonkatsu sauce over expertly steamed rice. I’m deeply in love with rice lathered in thick sauce and meat, so I can’t imagine a more ideal rice dish than this. I liked the tonkatsu so much, I used the crispy noodles from the previous dish and dragged them through the sauce. I haven’t been to Japan, but I’ve had enough katsu curry rice dishes outside of Japan to say I like this one the best.

Sapporo’s clubby music probably makes it feel more social (therefore increasing the authenticity factor), but the new space still feels like it’s missing something, like flavor in its ANKAKE.

The  + (What people who like this place would say)

• Prices fit comfortably within ML’s $10 limit
• Seems crowded, but the wait isn’t too long.
• Awesome pork cutlet with tonkatsu rice dish (even comes with miso soup!)
• As central as it gets, which is great if you want an authentic Japanese ramen experience without heading downtown.

The – (What people who don’t like this place would say)

• The “extra” portion of pork…isn’t.
• There’s not a long wait, but there’s nowhere to wait except at the awkward entryway.
• For a place that’s so hyped by the press, I expected more.
• This place no longer makes me feel like I’m in Japan. Lame!

Sapporo, 152 W. 49th St., btw. 6th & 7th 212-869-8972

Early in June, we mentioned that Sapporo (on 49th btw. 5+6th) would be closed til mid-June. Well, they’re back open- with slightly higher prices and a completely redesigned space.  This is actually the second time in 5 years they’ve done this, but this time the changes are a bit more noticeable… and they’ve added some new lunch specials.  Check out pics of the new digs plus the new lunch specials, after the jump.

The weird space dividers that ran down the middle of the room? Gone!  But check out the new “booths” up against the wall.  Fancy!  The room is definitely brighter and less cluttered.  (Although we always felt like the relative dinginess of Sapporo, compared to Menchanko Tei or Men Kui Tei, was part of its charm.)

Thankfully the lunch additions all fit nicely within our $10 lunch budget. I’ll definitely be back for the Katayaki Soba cause I kinda need to try the mysterious-sounding “special seafood ANKAKE sauce”. Has anybody tried any of the new dishes yet?  Let us know in the comments…

Sapporo, 152 W. 49th St., btw. 6th & 7th 212-869-8972

Thanks to Lunch’er “Marissa’ for pointing this one out… Sapporo, the popular ramen spot on 49th btw. 6+7th,will be closed for renovations until June 12th. Need a ramen replacement? There’s always Men Kui Tei (on 56th btw. 5+6th) and Menchanko Tei (on 55th btw. 5+6th).

It’s starting to get gross out, which makes eating hot ramen less and less appealing.  Thankfully summertime means Hiyashi chuka at Japanese restaurants, and Naengmyeon at Korean restaurants. Luncher Mark sends word that Pro Hot Korean (on 56th btw. 5+6th) is not serving their cold noodle dish yet, but what about the Japanese spots?

Hiyashi Ramen from Men Kui Tei (on 56th btw. 5+6th)

Sapporo (on 49th btw. 5+6th) is already serving their version, and Men Kui Tei (on 56th btw. 5+6th) serves their “Hiyashi Ramen” all year round. Plus both locations of Menchanko Tei (45th btw. Lex+3rd and 55th btw. 5+6th) are now serving their cold sesame noodles, and hayashi chuka. (And the 45th Street location is back open, after being closed for renovations.) Anybody know any Koreatown spots that have already started serving naengmyeon?