Customer Reviews

Momofuku

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I bought Momofuku a few weeks ago, after I heard an interview with the author on NPR. Coincidentally, my eleven year old daughter and I are going through a Ramen Noodles craze, inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's films (the grandfather in Whisper of the Heart serves noodles to the young ones when in distress; and in Ponyo the mom makes noodles look like magic).

In any case, I wanted something better than the packages available at the local Asian grocery store. Now, a month later, not only are my ramen noodles exquisite, but Momofuku has made me a much better cook. Here's why:
* Chang's attention to the quality of the ingredients one uses: I found a local farmer who raises pigs and drove an hour and a half on beautiful Oklahoma country roads to her place. My freezer is now packed with wonderful cuts of free ranging, non-chemical raised pork, stew meat, and bacon.
* His large quantities did not deter me. Actually, the book's advise on how to store food is perfect for my family of two. I made a huge pot of ramen noodle broth, let it reduce and once ready (simmered for 6 hours), stored in small containers in the freezer. Now I have absolutely wonderful broth for months. (Note: as a Colombian from the Andes, I don't want my broth to have any fishy flavor, so I excluded the Kombu from Chang's recipe)
* Chang's recipe for roasting pork is amazing too! I followed it by the book and ended up with something so good I had a hard time believing I had made it. I roasted a huge chunk of shoulder, and once ready and cool, shredded it, divided it in small zip lock bags, and to the freezer. As with the broth, I have excellent roasted pork to add to our weekly ramen noodles.
* Chang's creative techniques: I will never fry chicken any other way. Momofuku's recipe for fried chicken is exquisite. Easy, creative, and the chicken is delicious, tender, not oily, brown on the outside ...perfect.
* Small details that take once's eating experience to an entirely new level: such as the ginger, scallion recipe. Again, as a Colombian, when nostalgic sometimes I add a little chopped cilantro to the ginger-scallion sauce.

Chang's approach to Asian cuisine, his respect for tradition without the anxiety of hybridizing, bending, mixing, is perfect for a Colombian bored with the food available in central Oklahoma and trying to make good food out of an ordinary, everyday life kitchen.

Genius. I NEVER would've thought cherry tomatoes and sesame oil went so well together!
Many of the recipes are time consuming. But it's care, quality and skill that makes good restaurants stand out. Momofuku's recipes certainly rule out the ordinary.
I am Chinese-American and make my soups by simmering bones for 6 hrs, that is what is takes - so David Chang's ramen broth is the real deal. This is the first I heard about adding tare, that must be the killer deal. No MSG here.

Some of the reviews scared me off at first but not all the recipes are difficult. I made the braised pork belly. Dude. This is an EASY recipe. Marinate w/salt & sugar overnight and stick it in the oven. Made the steam bun thing and all. Yummy, worthwhile and actually easy. Oh, and it's like one of their flagship dishes.

He is Korean-American and he actually made Kimchi better. I tried the nappa and cucumber kimchi and it rocks. So much better than the standard kimchi, it's got lots ginger, sugar and fish sauce too.
I don't think I'll ever play around with food glue or make deep fry pork rinds at home but this cookbook is not titled, 'home cookin momofuku'. It does, however, makes you appreciate what it takes to prepare their food.

This is a cookbook that requires some asian ingredients and cooking methods. So if you've never even purchased a chinese or korean cookbook or never made anything but a stir-fry, the recipes may seem daunting. If you don't make any of recipes, it teaches a few things and it's also a good read.

David Chang is a young, energetic and creative chef who takes you down the path of his success. He is very entertaining so it also fun to read (minus his expletives). You can feel his passion, hard work and he repeatedly credits those who have supported and helped him to where he is. How many chefs do that in their cookbooks?
I am hoping to visit his restaurant when I'm in NYC next spring. Just don't know which one yet.

I came to MOMOFUKU as a relatively beginning cook (despite my middle age) and an intermediate foodie, and suspected that the recipes from David Chang's acclaimed group of NYC restaurants would be over my head. I was right -- as they will be for all but the most adventurous and experienced cooks. But recipes aren't the only aspect to this book -- it's also a memoir of Chang's path from happy noodle-eater/unhappy office-worker through cooking school and apprenticeships to award-winning chef and restaurateur.

In fact, straightforward recipes are fairly rare in this book. Rather, they're tutorials -- each step is a paragraph about process and technique, and I'm already a better cook (and restaurant patron) just for having read them. The book itself is trademark Clarkson-Potter (think Barefoot Contessa and Martha Stewart books) -- smooth, heavy pages filled with full-color photographs of food, the restaurants, diners and staff -- many of which evoke a sense of motion and hectic energy. That energy is reinforced by Chang's conversational text, including profanity (which feels seamless and characterizing) and absolute gems of instruction. For example, for a pan-roasted rib eye (a do-able recipe), Chang advises to "Season the steak liberally with salt -- like you'd salt a sidewalk in New York in the winter," and, after cooking, to "Let the steak rest. Just leave it the hell alone"; about removing the fat from pigskin in the process of making pork rinds (*not* a do-able recipe): "Scrape gently but with determination."

Highly recommended for uber-motivated -- and armchair -- cooks.

I found this book hard to rate, and I expect that some might take exception with the 3 stars I've given Momofuku. Let me say that it is a very nice, high quality hard cover book with many full color pictures. I would not, however call it a "cookbook". Despite the length of this book, there are precious few recipes. What recipes there are seemed definitely not geared toward the amateur chef.

I think if you are a more experienced chef with a desire to have a greater understanding of the author's style of Asian cooking, you will likely rate this book higher than I did. If you purchase this book expecting a traditional cookbook with accessible recipes, you will likely rate it lower than I did.

Make your decision to purchase accordingly.

I'd like to take many of the other reviewers here to task. If you're going to review a cookbook, TRY TO COOK FROM IT! The back story to David Chang is interesting, but the stories lead to the food. Why not try to understand his cooking and story a little bit better by trying to make his stuff?

I've had the privilege to eat at Momofuku Ko when Chef Chang was cooking that night. The black and white pictures in the proof copy don't do justice to the food. I've also eaten at the Noodle Bar and the Milk Bar, but somehow just skipped over Ssam (though friends of mine say it's really good). So I was pretty excited to get this book.

I offer this critique, and I think it's a pretty major flaw: this book in general is not practical. The recipes are daunting and clearly in quantities only a catering company or large dinner party would serve. Many people will probably find the recipes too difficult to do on their own.

For example, his ramen broth alone is very long and complicated, and makes literally gallons of the stuff -- and that's after you cut it in half. The ramen noodles are equally terrifying -- beyond the scope of most at-home cooks. Needless to say, I didn't try this.

I did try to make the steamed pork buns. It is incredibly time consuming -- making the dough alone takes a few hours, especially for an amateur cook like myself who has never done it before. The pork belly takes hours, too. And it makes more pork buns than I care to think about -- I lost count at around 35. The taste comes close to Noodle Bar, but there's just something about their food that's just different (and better). Maybe it's their hoisin sauce. Instead of slaving away in the kitchen literally all day, you almost think it's better to drive to the restaurant in NYC and get the pork buns there instead, regardless of where you live in the US. Or abroad.

The pork belly ssam in the book is just a hop, skip, and jump away with the pork belly cooked for the pork buns. But since I've never been to Ssam Bar, I can't compare it.

The frozen foie gras is a revelation when eating at Ko. Reading the recipe turned my stomach (picking out veins and green bile spots?? Bleah!). Didn't try this either. The pine nut brittle that accompanies the foie gras looks good to make, but who has isomalt lying around?

You can kind of tell Chef Chang doesn't care too much about desserts. When I ate at Ko, all I got was funnel cake. In the book he only includes two or three, most of which are just impossible to make. There are no recipes from Milk Bar in the book, either. I wish there were -- I really like the pies there.

If nothing else, this book makes you appreciate how much work Chef Chang puts into his food. But at the end of the day, this won't be a book I'll open to find recipes to serve for dinner parties; I'll look at it before my next trip to New York City to remind myself to get more pork buns at Noodle Bar.

I wanted this book under the mistaken impression that making a good bowl of noodles couldn't be that big a deal. I was wrong and soon realized this is not the cookbook for me. But I think this is a good cookbook for the right person; I'll try to review it so you will know if this is going to be right for you or not.

There are two reasons why you might really want this cookbook. First, you may be interested in the story behind David Chang's Momofuku family of restaurants. On that level, I found the book very entertaining. David Chang may be a hard working, creative, inventive cook but he is also very lucky and he is quick to acknowledge this. The book tells how he got started cooking and gives stories from some of the places he worked on his way, including at ramen shops in Japan. These are some entertaining stories but I have a warning for people who don't like cursing - Chang does it. A lot. I'm fairly certain none of my other cookbooks have some many F-bombs sprinkled throughout.

The first of the restaurants was Noodle Bar. Chang wanted to open a ramenya in New York and this lead to my misunderstanding: I thought recipes for making noodle dishes would be simple. But the recipe for Momofuku Ramen is actually at least six recipes (ramen broth, tare, dashi, noodles, pork belly, pork shoulder) plus the instructions for the various toppings that go on the ramen. This isn't the cookbook for you if you just want to make one bowl of ramen. Even the simplest noodle recipe (ginger scallion sauce for ginger scallion noodles) makes 3 cups - far more than I could use before it spoiled. The others all require making the ingredients in quantities too large for just me. There are also recipes for Momofuku pork buns, chicken and egg, chicken wings, Momofuku fried chicken, pan roasted asparagus with poached egg, brussels sprouts with kimchi puree and bacon, roasted sweet summer corn with miso butter, bacon and roasted onions, cherry tomato salad, peas with horseradish, pan-roasted bouchot mussels with os, bacon dashi with potatoes and clams, Sichuan crawfish, grilled octopus salad with konbu, bamboo shoots and pickled chiles, and shrimp and grits. I think I would enjoy eating the food at Noodle Bar. That brings me to the other reason someone would want this cookbook: you like the food at one or more of the Momofuku restaurants, are serious about cooking, are cooking for more than one person (or have freezer space for the extras), and are willing to take the time to make the various components for each recipe. If that's you, then you may just adore this book.

The second restaurant was Ssäm Bar, which was intended to be like an Asian burrito bar. The story of this restaurant is another entertaining story of success despite the odds. The recipes in this section are for oysters (and garnishes), bay scallops with dashi, chive oil and pineapple, Maine jonah crab claws, cured hamachi with horseradish-edamame puree, fuji apple salad with kimchi, smoked jowl, and maple labne, roasted mushroom salad with braised pistachios, pickled sunchokes and radishes, fried cauliflower (or Brussels sprouts) with fish sauce vinaigrette, XO sauce, bo ssäm, marinated hanger steak ssäm, pork belly ssäm, grilled lemongrass pork sausage ssäm, spicy pork sausage and rice cakes, pork shoulder steak, pan-roasted dry-aged rib eye, "brick" chicken, pig's head torchon, bánh mì, chicken liver terrine, ham terrine, and momofuku shortcakes. This food also sounded quite good.

The third restaurant was Ko. This is the restaurant into which they put the most planning because Chang had built a reputation by that time. It would be high end, expensive food but with a lower end aesthetic. The recipes from Ko are chicharrón (basically fried pork rinds!), english muffins, fluke with buttermilk, soy and poppy seeds, Ko kimchi consommé with pork belly, oysters and napa cabbage, soft-cooked hen egg with caviar, onions and potato, roasted new jersey diver scallop, shaved foie gras with lychee and pine nut brittle, 48-hour short rib with braised daikon, pickled carrot and mustard seeds, rice with miso soup, cereal milk, and fried apple pie.

In addition to the recipes and stories about the restaurants, there are also sections on some of the people who provide ingredients to the restaurants and a scary sounding ingredient -- meat glue. Even though I decided the recipes were either more involved or required making ingredients in quantities too large for just me, I thought this book was highly entertaining. Someone willing to actually make several of the recipes, would probably adore it.

I took Momofuku to bed with me and read through the whole cookbook.
The next day I purchased mega bunches of scallions and ginger and
proceeded to make the sauce for the next week eating it with soba
noodles. I eventually added tofu, radishes, sesame seeds and various
other ingredients - although I must say - this sauce is superb with
just warm noodles! A lot of the other recipes are much more involved -
although not difficult - so I look forward to trying them at some
point. David is incredibly passionate, eclectic and disciplined. I
have such great respect for one who believes ingredients and preparation -
along with a little drink - are what life is all about - well at least
a good part! We are what we eat! Regarding the commentary throughout
the book and comments about each recipe specifically ... a wonderful
read and helpful suggestions. I could do with a bit less vulgarity ...
but on the other hand - this IS who David Chang IS! So be it!

This is a fascinating book about David Chang's rise to culinary fame but not a book for someone who likes ramen and simply wants a home version of his recipes. None of the recipes are scaled for the home. These are grand projects that involve an intense amount of time.

While I appreciate the detail and craft of making his ramen stock, I would have loved to have had a version that approximates it or scales it for the average home chef. What is provided is a complex recipe that seems like it involves finding a pig in the woods, slaughtering it whole and making noodles from the fallopian tubes of unicorns.

I certainly will appreciate the ramen at Noodle Bar more on my next visit...i just wish I could make the horse radish snow peas with out cooking for 2 weeks straight.

As Anthony Bourdain would say: This cookbook is food porn. Picture after picture of stunning dishes and restaurant situations, page after page of vivid descriptions and recipes. For sure, the recipes are not easy, but eating is only half of the fun of this book.

Momofuku is a Cookbook from chef David Chang, owner of Restaurant legends: Momofuku Noodle Bar, Ssam Bar, Ko and Bakery and Milk Bar. The recipes in this cookbook are pulled from those restaurants and are broken down into sections based on each restaurant resulting in an incredible array of Chang's particular fusion style.

I have never been to any of these restaurants, I live in a state with precious few stand out eateries, so when a cookbook like this comes out, I jump on it. I regularly cook out of my French Laundry Cookbook, my Akvavit cookbook is in tatters and I regularly set aside Saturdays to spend time working my way through their complicated recipes. My house gets to become my little gourmet restaurant. Momofuku makes this adventure even funner by fusing stunning recipes with a story. Each chapter is a perfect mix of Chang's story and life and the food that fills it.

To be sure, the recipes in this book are not for the average evening meal. They are complicated, lengthy and they require ingredients that are more than a little difficult to find depending on where you live. For me finding pork belly, fluke and kockukaru is no easy task. But no matter, it is worth the hunt and if your search ends up fruitless the recipes are solid enough that they can handle a substitution. But whatever it takes, the food is well worth the work. The roasted rice cakes are tangy and light, the ramen is stunning with firm, flavorful noodles and rich, salty broth and the pickled chantrelles are destined to become a regular around my house.

If you just like reading about the giants of the food world, this cookbook is worth the purchase for that alone. But if you, like me, aren't afraid to spend a few hours and experience a few failures to create a masterpiece, this book is an excellent cookbook as well. Just be prepared to do a lot of searching and a lot of experimenting.

When I first received the Momofuku cookbook, I was really excited. The book itself is beautifully made and David Chang's stories are entertaining and inspirational. However, my enthusiasm for this cookbook faded after trying many of the recipes. For instance, after my meal at Momofuku Ko, I wanted to make the fluke with buttermilk sauce. I followed the recipe and ended up with a sauce that tasted the same, but had a completely different texture. After some searching on the Internet, I found that the restaurant uses a stabilizer to thicken the sauce, which isn't listed in the cookbook recipe. I've found similar issues with many of the other recipes in the cookbook, not to mention recipes that simply have incorrect portions listed for the ingredients (see fried apple pie dough). As a result, many of the recipes in this cookbook are great conceptually, but fail in practice. Perhaps David Chang was trying to adapt his recipes for the home cook, but that hardly makes sense given some of the extremely technical recipes and strange ingredients found within (see meat glue). And speaking of ingredients, it would have been nice if David Chang included recommendations for some of the less common ingredients used in the recipes. For instance, I've read that Chang prefers Yamasa usukuchi, which would be nice to know. I also had to try several different brands of white miso before I found one that tasted right in the miso butter recipe.

Nevertheless, there are some great recipes in the cookbook that work as they should. I'm not sure I would pay $20 again for those few recipes, but you might feel differently.