Restaurant review, How Good Are Brooklyn's Japanese Noodle Spots?

In times of stress, the appetite turns to ramen for comfort. By flickering candlelight in a West Village restaurant during the hurricane's aftermath, a friend and I sat talking noodles. "Why do all the ramen places in Brooklyn suck?" lamented the Fort Greene resident. "Not sure they totally suck, but I know what you mean," I replied. "The soups often seem too compulsively creative, when you want something more predictable."
It was then I decided to embark on a whirlwind tour of Brooklyn ramen restaurants, visiting the most talked-about spots, sometimes more than once. My first stop, riding across the Williamsburg Bridge on my bike with the L still down, was the recently opened Ramen Yebisu (126 North 6th Street, 718-782-1444). It was founded by Akira Hiratsuka, who grew up on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido and has some very northern ideas about noodles. Many ramen enthusiasts idolize tonkotsu, the opaque pig-foot broth from far-southern Japan, but Hiratsuka doesn't make it. Instead, the flagship of his fleet is ramen Yebisu ($17), a shellfish bowl featuring mussels, a king crab leg, one completely intact shrimp—legs still thrashing, though quite dead—and a massive round crustacean with a curious ruffled anatomy. What the hell was it?

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