Our neighborhood just keeps getting better and better. First Brooklyn Fare opens last month,  and now Gotham West Market has opened on 11th Avenue and 44th Street.

Gotham West Market is billing itself as “a first-of-its-kind retail and dining destination in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood.”  It features some great foodie destination dining, including a new outpost of Cannibal and a permanent location for Ivan Ramen, an infamous ramen maker that has been opening pop-ups randomly throughout the city, but hasn’t had a storefront until now.  It is also home to the newest NYC location of Blue Bottle Coffee. Others on their restaurant/shop list include The Brooklyn Kitchen (great kitchen supply store), NYC Velo (a bicycle shop), Little Chef (from the same chef as Saltie, serving farm-to-table sandwiches, soups, and salads), El Colmado (tapas and wine from Chef Seamus Mullen), Genuine Roadside (classic “roadside” food including burgers and shakes), and Court Street Grocers (sandwich shop).

We stopped by today to check it out.

First of all, it’s far.  11th avenue is even west for me, and I’m a west side girl.  But it’s in perfect proximity to the Jacob Javits Convention Center, the Intrepid Museum, and all the new westside apartment complexes and hotels opening up recently.

But once you make the haul there, it’s a fun (if not very expensive) escape into foodie heaven.

This was their first weekend open.

We ducked into The Brooklyn Kitchen and looked around their artisanal food selections and nice kitchen supply.

And I really enjoyed their tag line.

They have some great supplies and fun food items for those who love to cook and bake.

And in the back they have cooking classes, including this knife skills class that was going on when we were there. (The clerk said classes are around $65-$85). They even have a pizza making class with Roberta’s.

Out in the main part of the market, each restaurant has a nook and there are tables scattered about where you can take any of the food.

When we were there, it was pretty full but not crowded. (I’m sure that is temporary!)

The entire place is designed with a distinctive industrial aesthetic. And I was especially amused by their advertisement of “Clean” restrooms (and yes… they were).

The Cannibal’s menu was actually quite consistent with the one in their main restaurant. They also had some brunch additions.

And you can get some beer and booze as well.

They have the case of meat, as they do in their main restaurant.

Even down to the pig’s head.

And the big case of craft beers.

Just begging to be taken home.

Little Kitchen had a fun menu

And I really wanted to try each of these little snacks.

El Comado had a lot of wines to offer.

And I loved the display of Iberico Ham that they were shaving fresh.

At Genuine Roadside, they had a big menu of comfort foods.

But we decided to have our first Gotham Market meal at Ivan Ramen. (“Slurp Shop”)

Their menu features a few different types of ramen.

And an assembly line of ramen artists putting each combination together at a bar for all to see.

We went with the Classic Shio (sea salt, chicken + dashi double soup, pork chashu, rye noodle) and Roasted Garlic Mazemen (nori, chicken + dashi double soup, pork chashu, rye noodle) and added an egg to each.

The Roasted Garlic was more like noodles in a (very) garlicky sauce.  I loved the garlic flavor, but Mike was hoping for more broth.

The Shio broth was very flavorful, and I especially loved the piece of pork that was cooked just right.  The egg was great, but not quite the flavor of the tea eggs I love.  The noodles also had a nice texture and I enjoyed the rye flavor.

The ramen was quite good, but it was certainly not Ippudo (not even close) and even fell a bit short of our local favorite Crispy Rard Nah from Zoob Zib.  I’m glad we tried it, but I won’t be running back to try it again (especially with so many other things to try there!)  But slurp we certainly did!

We also ended our meal at Blue Bottle Coffee.

I really like the flavor of their coffees. They are quite rich and deep.

And I also got a snickerdoodle (which was served, amusingly, in a coffee filter).  This snickerdoodle wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I read that it was made with saffron, but I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so savory.  One thing I love about snickerdoodles is the cinnamon on top, and this was lacking. Overall good, but not what I would consider a snickerdoodle.

But that coffee… oh that coffee.  They take special pride in their foam art and the taste was great, as always.

Gotham West Market is an awesome addition to the neighborhood and I can’t wait to try more of their restaurants soon!

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