Midtown Lunch

Yes, that is an empty bag you are looking at.  As the weather gets colder, we sometimes have to rely on the power of delivery and that can be a total crapshoot. I heard that Sushi Planet had ramen on the menu. I placed my order and waited. An hour later my delivery arrived, except the ramen was missing. I was pretty hungry at this point, luckily at least half my order was inside.

I noticed pork buns on the menu ($7), so I kinda had to add that.  I was actually impressed; the requisite fluffy mantou, scallions, and hoisin were all there. The pork wasn’t the belly lined with melt in your mouth fat made famous by David Chang, but it was quite flavorful, well cooked, and came with a satisfying amount of meat. As you will see, this was the only non disappointment. An order of pork buns and a simple tuna roll might be the way to go here.

A hand roll of spicy scallop was decent; it could have been fresher and less loosey goosey sushi in its construction. It wasn’t worth the $7.

After a phone call and another 40 minutes the ramen came. And after that, another ramen came, by a different delivery guy, and with a full refund. The mix up was completely on the part of delivery guy #1 and I appreciate the efforts Sushi Planet took to try to make it up to us.

This giant portion of shoyu ramen costs $8 and comes with seaweed, hard boiled egg, fish cake, and pork. The pork was close to what I had in the pork bun, so that part was nice, but that was the only thing that was at all good. The broth tasted mostly like fish cake, and I really really hate the taste of fish cake. It is a kind of sweet, fake fishy, thing that is all wrong in ramen. Even the addition of vinegar and Sriracha couldn’t save it. So now I am left with 2 free giant containers of ramen that I have no interest in eating. I can tell you that at least one good thing can come from this, there will be 2 homeless people getting a free dinner tonight.

THE + (What somebody who likes this place would say)

• Good pork buns

THE – (What somebody who doesn’t like this place would say)

• Unreliable delivery
• Pretty unpleasant ramen broth

Sushi Planet, 624 South 3rd Street, (@ Bainbridge St) 215 922-5000