We strolled by Setagaya, the East Village's new ramen shop, an outpost of a real life Japanese chain, around 8PM last night to see a line of about 20 people creeping down First Avenue. This makes us hate ourselves for being part of the hype machine that is New York blogging, but it's also somewhat inevitable when you're talking ramen, which is at least as trendy as pork belly or burgers.

Clearly, we had more important things to do than join this line -- or, we were too hungry to wait. (We had delicious house-made kimchee at Village Yokocho, by the way.) But of course, the reviews and speculation are trickling in over on Chowhound.

Some excerpts:

"perhaps the best ramen broth I've had... What makes it happen is really the salt, the salt that transports :)"

"I especially liked the noodles -- they were super chewy."

"This wasn’t a roll of pork dumped in a vat of soy sauce overnight. I’ll take one slice of this guy’s chashu over three slices of Momofuku’s any day."

And one 'hound, oneillkg, points us towards the next ramen hotspot in the East Village, another Japanese chain, Hakata Ippudo has an 80-seat space and plans to open this year... start lining up, bitches!

Ramen Setagaya

141 First Aveunue

(212) 529-2740