A chain amid New York’s unforgiving streets it may be, but hauling itself above such a label and its pejorative connotations with daily hand-made udon, and choice ingredients such as aromatic bonito flakes and savoury kombu kelp, TsuruTonTan has elevated the wholesome udon bowl into something better. With a dozen outposts across the Kanto and Kansai regions of Japan since founding in 1989 it is only recently that TsuruTonTan has crossed international lines, its latest opening a contemporary bare-brick space, where the much-missed Union Square Cafe once stood, on New York’s East 16th Street.

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