300 Free Bowls Of Ramen > COVID-19

Three hundred free bowls of ramen at a new Japanese restaurant on Orange Street trumped local lunch-goers’ concerns about going out to eat during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, as local restaurateurs scrambled to prepare for tough months ahead as people hunker down at home and public events are canceled.

Those steaming, cost-free bowls of noodles, hard-boiled eggs, sliced pork, and chicken-based broth were served up Thursday at Menya-Gumi at 165 Orange St.

Sister-brother duo Diana and Angel Cheng, who are the restaurant’s general manager and head chef respectively, said that the 300 free bowls were part of a long-scheduled promotional event designed to attract customers to the newly opened restaurant, which held a soft opening on Tuesday and plans to host an official grand opening next week.

The giveaway nevertheless doubled as a successful strategy for overcoming the otherwise massive local social disruptions caused by the coronavirus outbreak. Although no New Haveners have yet tested positive for the virus as of the end of Thursday, the city has indefinitely closed its public schools, senior centers, and libraries as a precautionary measure designed to stem any potential spread.

Any anxieties about the virus were absent from Menya-Gumi’s ramen giveway.

At 12:30 Thursday afternoon, two dozen people stood lined up on the sidewalk outside Menya-Gumi while another two dozen sat inside, slurping up the chintan (clear) and paitan (cloudy) ramen.

“There’s so much more to ramen than just pork,” said Angel (pictured) as he ladled the chicken-based stock into a line of four bowls before him before chopping up some scallions.

He said that his family used to own a string of sushi restaurants throughout Connecticut, and that this is the first food venture he and his sister have ever run together.

“We are serving traditional ramen and Japanese cuisine,” said Diana (pictured at left). ​“We want to teach our customers that ramen is more than just creamy-broth comfort food.”

When asked about how coronavirus concerns might impact their budding business, Diana said she’s feeling upbeat. She said that she works as a medical imaging technologist when not working at the restaurant, and that she’s well aware of the best practices for minimizing the risk of disease spread: By encouraging customers to wash their hands frequently, and by working with her staff to clean frequently touched surfaces.

“I’m not concerned at all,” she said. ​“We’re on top of it.”

Mason Rabinowitz and Giulia Gouge (pictured) praised the new restaurant’s ramen as not just tasty — but as helping provide a bit of a respite from the pandemic.

“It was nice to see a bunch of people together in a good mood,” Rabinowitz said.

“I’m really needing to see happy faces right now,” Gouge added. And Menya-Gumi provided just that.

As for the food? ​“It was the best noodles I’ve had in a while,” Rabinowitz said.

“Not The First Time Life Slapped Us In The Face”

Just a few feet south on Orange Street, Eddie Higgins (pictured) had a less enthusiastic — if no less resilient — attitude about how COVID-19 has affected and will affect his business, The Trinity Bar.

Higgins said that his bar has had to cancel a band performance that was scheduled to take place after the also-canceled city St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Talk radio hosts Chaz and AJ were also scheduled to set up shop at the bar for the festivities. That too has been cancelled.

“It’s unfortunate,” Higgins said. This was going to be the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade that the bar would be open for after a debilitating fire closed down the pub for nearly two years.

“This is more than about one day or two days,” Higgins said. ​“I’m not looking short term. We’re hoping to be around for a long time.”

“It’s not the first time life has slapped us in the face,” he continued. ​“We dusted ourselves off after the fire. We’ll do the same after coronavirus.”

He said he hasn’t seen too much of a hit to business so far. Wednesday night had 14 teams’ worth of customers turn out for weekly trivia, he said.

“Thank God for our regular customers.”

At the bar, Dan Starr (pictured) finished his vodka on the rocks and spoke about how the fear of getting coronavirus has been messing with his head — even if it hasn’t deterred him from going out to one of his favorite bars.

He said he rode the bus from Hamden Plaza to downtown New Haven Thursday morning, and counted all four times that fellow bus riders coughed during the trip.

“I know enough psychology to know what paranoid is,” he said. He recalled a lecture by a psychologist that he had attended at Yale University years ago. That visiting speaker asked a question that he said has been ringing in his ears these past few weeks.

“What do you call paranoia when they’re really out to get you?” he asked.

“Don’t Know What To Expect”

Just a few dozen feet north on Orange Street, former Yale School of Medicine scientist turned Vietnamese restaurateur Duc Nguyen (pictured) hustled to cook and assemble nearly a dozen banh mi orders midday as hungry customers waited at his restaurant, Duc’s Place.

When the lunch rush subsided, Nguyen caught his breath and reflected on how the coronavirus pandemic has played out so far in the local economy and national politics.

He said his business has lost quite a few catering orders for events that have been canceled due to the virus. ​“This week is kind of slow,” he said, even though Thursday’s lunch rush was as busy as ever.

“I don’t know what to expect,” he said.

“It’s human behavior that causes of lot of these things,” he continued. ​“It’s a preventable disease.”

He said that people need to follow commonsense advice offered by every public health expert who speaks on the subject: Wash your hands frequently. Don’t touch your face. Stay home if you’re feeling sick. Minimize exposure for the elderly and immuno-compromised.

He blamed President Donald Trump for running an administration that has been so hostile to science for the past three years, and that actively cut divisions of the federal government charged with protecting the public from infectious disease outbreaks.

“He’s just irresponsible,” Nguyen said.