“Ivan Ramen!”
—when you remember the name of that restaurant your friend told you to check out.
“Apparently, it was ranked one of the top-something ramens in Japan, and it’s just this Jewish guy from Long Island!”
I knew a friend had posted about it on Facebook, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember the damn name, so I couldn’t find the post. I scrolled for days, gave up.
Weeks later, my friend Dave from Ontario was down in NYC for a visit. He reached into his bag and pulled out a souvenir: Ivan Orkin’s “Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession, and Recipes from Tokyo’s Most Unlikely Noodle Joint” with a forward by David Chang, chef and founder of Momofuku.
“IVAN RAMEN! Yes, I’ve heard of that place!”
Serendipity had thrown me a line, but if Dave hadn’t showed me that book, my taste buds would’ve never been christened by Ivan Orkin’s masterful noodlry.
Facebook, Twitter: if someone posts a favorite spot, in a week it’s buried. Gone. Good luck finding it in the sea of random posts, curated by an aimless moderator with digital ADHD.
As humans, we search, we find, we try and then curate: toss the bad and keep the good. We refine, then share the best with friends. This is natural.
A friend of mine is working on an app to keep track of those curated favorites: 7 categories, 7 favorites in each.
Got a friend who knows the best spots in town for sukiyaki? Check their current list of faves. Found a new ramen joint that blew your taste buds to smithereens? Post it as one of your 7 favorite restaurants, then recommend it to that foodie friend who annoyingly knows all the best new places to eat — then pat yourself on the back for introducing them to their new crave.
Each profile is finite: 49 favorites. So you can always find that one rec you’re looking for.
The app is called my7. Check it out!
