Delicious dumplings and more!
December 10, 2009
Porter Exchange in Cambridge has been one of my favorite places in the area to go to eat for years now, and though there have been a variety of negative changes that have taken place recently (the loss of Kotobukiya market, the sushi counter changing to new owners who aren’t as good as the old owners), the places left are doing a great job of reminding me why I like to go there. Sapporo Ramen is still cranking out delicious hot bowls of noodle soups and ridiculously delicious gyoza dumplings to please the passersby.
Being a relatively cold day out, I wanted something to warm me up. I hadn’t been to Sapporo in quite a while, and while they have made some changes (positive ones, like new cups, new menus), the quality of the food has not dipped one bit. Complex broths filled with delicately cooked ramen (try not to think of the dried out packages of sodium you see in the store or have eaten when you are broke, this is the real deal and is quite a treat) that are filled with choice ingredients. I was a huge fan of the Vegetable one, with a soy sauce and pepper broth filled with all sorts of fresh veggies and tofu. The house soup, filled with corn, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, scallions, and seaweed all topped off with pork and a hardboiled egg simmering in a house broth. The flavors of chicken and veggies in the broth really make this one shine.
My favorite thing to get, though, is the pork gyoza. Tasty little dumplings, seared on one side, are the best way to spend $4.75 I can think of. You also have the option of getting vegetarian ones, which are also pretty fantastic!
A great thing about Sapporo is that you can go with a friend or on a date, each picks a soup and experiments with new soups. If one doesn’t care for theirs, they will assuredly like the other and a swap can be made. That is what happened with Lizz and I, as we ended up liking the others much better than the ones we ordered, so we traded! Of course, we both loved the gyoza, and it came in just a bit over $20 for two people, so not too expensive either!
Sapporo Ramen (although this is the old menu, it is still relatively similar to the new menu)
1815 Mass Ave
Cambridge, MA
These pictures are so nice!