Mamezen

Thanks to Kyoto Foodie who had published a post on Mamezen, I don’t think a lot of us foreign travellers to Kyoto would have ever heard of this place. (Thank you!!) We had a slight issue finding the place – even with google maps and the GPS on our phones, we walked past the restaurant several times before noticing the signage that indicated that we were at the right place. Mamezen is a private kitchen - it is located in a cozy house, and judging by the way it was set up, where I believe Chef Yonegawa resides.

It is a ramen like none other. I am used to the salt lick from the shoyu based ramen or the full on tastes of a tonkatsu broth but this was something really different and something really special. The best way I can describe broth is that it has savoury roundness - umami from the dashi base but a balanced richness from soy milk that gives it that smoothness without the heaviness of a cream or a thickener.

There was a good serene quality to the entire meal. We got there on the late side of lunch so the restaurant was quiet. We sat at the counter and enjoyed being at the “chef’s table”: watching Chef Yonegawa prepare out meal and then us slurping down the noodles. It was a really nice lunch retreat.

MamezenKyoto-shi, Sakyo-ku
Shimogamo, Higashi Takagi-cho 13-4

Gogyo - Black Burnt Gold

Gogyo specialises in kogashi (burnt) miso and shoyu soup... where (you watch) the cooks literally set the soup on fire and a black soup is created. This came recommended (thanks JJ!) and his description of it was – it taste like liquid BBQ. Well, as bizarre as it sounds and it sounded to me, my bowl of kogashi miso ramen really did taste like BBQ, liquid yakiniku. As burnt black as it looks, don’t judge it by its first impressions. Firstly don’t be deceived by the lack of steam, the broth is burning hot but the oil is concealing and retaining the heat. Secondly, the flavours are awesome because the burnt flavour isn’t overpowering, instead it comes together with the broth and just gives it an added kickass charred flavour that I have never ever had with any other bowl of ramen.

I’d admit, this is probably not very good for you but it will taste very good to you.

Gogyo
1-4-36 Nishi-Azabu, Minato-ku;
Tokyo, Japan
Tel: +81-(03) 5775-5566

Rokurinsha - Magic in a bowl

 

 
Surf and Turf in a bowl – the broth is a potent mix of pork and fish that had layer after layer of flavour. The queues are crazy long so in an attempt to beat the system, we went for the lighter option and the shorter queues – asatsuken (breakfast tsukemen). As a compromise, this is served without the gyofun (dried fish powder) and the broth is lighter.



Dip/dunk noodles, stir and little to coat the noodles and slurp. Once you work through the noodles, add a ladle of hot broth to slurp down the soup. Once the broth was added and the soup was stirred, the soup came to life. What we were once dipping into, because it was more viscous and more warmish to tepid, despite it was fabulously flavourful, muted some of the flavours. With the hot broth, there were so many more layers of flavours that we could taste. Spoon after spoon, more favours emerged - yuzu, smokiness from the bonito, rich porky broth, sweet (from vegetables?), savoury and a gentle heat at the end. This broth is seriously exceptional – I would have never have thought of a making a surf and turf pork and fish broth; and what are all the mysterious ingredients that go into it?! As our first meal in Tokyo for this trip, we were off to a good start.

 

Rokurinsha Tokyo
Tokyo Ramen Street (Tokyo Station)
Tokyo Ichiban-gai B1, 1-9-1 Marunouchi,
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Tel: +81 (03) 3286-0166

Nagahama No.1 Ramen

I haven’t had very much ramen here in Hong Kong but I recently ate a good bowl of Tonkotsu Ramen with Hakata-style thin noodles at Nagahama No.1 Ramen. I had the No.1 ramen which was the ramen with the works – two kinds of pork (I found the lean pork nicer), wood ear, spring onions, soft boiled egg and roasted nori. Other than that, you can choose, oil or no oil and the level of doneness of you noodles, I elected for hard and the noodles arrived cooked through tender but firm. The broth was rich but mellow enough not to be overwhelming and the egg although it looked a bit dried out was still pretty flavourful and decent. I’ll probably come back again for a weekday dinner.

Nagahama No.1 Ramen
G/F, 14 Kau U Fong
Central, HK

Ippudo: The meal of pork pork pork

Ippudo has arrived!

Second after New York, our little island is the only other city (for now) that house an overseas outlet of this popular Japanese ramen chain. We thought we could skip the queue by arriving late but even at 9pm the line was still 10-man long! The relatively waiting time, however, was thankfully relatively short, 10 minute tops.

I was hoping it would have a Tokyo hole-in-the-wall feel but it presented itself as quite the opposite, a large dining room lined with a bowl mural and Japanese comics, its modern and for lack of a better word, Japanese-looking.



Ippudo was on the eating agenda during my last trip to Japan but somehow it never happened. So how awesome is this: since I couldn’t go to Ippudo, Ippudo came to me! Expectations were set high and sad to say, I was mildly disappointed. The bowl of akamaru ramen had the right elements to make it spectacular – skinny silky noodles in pork broth with ‘manually’ stirred in red miso, black garlic oil, and paper thin slices of pork, the soup had a great delicate nutty flavour and a soft mouthfeel but it lacked an additional flavour dimension that prevented it from transcending to super good.

Ramen aside, the rest of the menu, in particular the appetizer section, had interesting items; if my memory serves me right, I spotted a prawn cocktail (rather unusual for a ramen shop) and a tofu with beans that I would like to return to try. But for dinner this visit, it was pork pork pork - Pork buns, pork gyozas and our pork stock bowls of ramen - and as a justification to that skewed diet, my dining companion declared, “you can never have enough pork”. The gyozas are what I would call "pork-corn" sized but the pork buns were delicious, my only gripe, is that needed more pork, if not it was most of it was lovely.

Ippudo Singapore
333A Orchard Road
Mandarin Gallery #04-02
Tel: 6235-2797

*photo credit to Dave.

Hurrah for Ken!

Noodle House Ken
150 Orchard Road
#01-17/18
Orchard Plaza
Tel: 6235-5540



After the disappointing outing to Sapporo Ramen Miharu, I was rather determined to find a decent bowl of Ramen that had a full-flavoured broth and ramen that did not taste like instant noodles. I took my cue from the travelling hungry boy, who has slurping bowls of noodles at various ramen shops in singapore.

Thankfully my dinner companion for the night was rather accomodating, since she warmly took to my idea of seeking out this bowl of ramen of which I did not have the address for, and the walk there was going to take at least a 20 minute walk or longer through the swarmp of people in orchard road. Searching for this ramen shop, my eyes lit up when I saw an outdoor Asahi umbrella and I proclaimed, “I think we are here!” Sure enough, and thankfully, we had arrived and were ushered through a narrow alley to the next room, where we were seated.

We did not get to meet Ken, but there is a picture of him on the menu, so I guess you can keep your eyes peeled to spot the man who spends 8 hours making the gorgeous stock for these simple and comforting bowls of ramen. The ramen was bouncy and had a slight resistance when I bit into, and the char siew had a good amount of fat that made the meat juicy and had a hit but not over powering “natural porky” taste. Our dinner was rather perfect, unlike the noodle bars where you eat and run, we savoured and slurped, sipped Ebisu and lingered over conversation.



Ramen bowls here are priced at $10 or $12, and you can get a large bowl for another $2, and additional goodies in your soup such as corn, char siew, eggs, bamboo shoots, etc, for another $2 or so.

Oodles of noodles + hot broth + ingredients of choice = RAMEN!

Sapporo Ramen Miharu
The Gallery Hotel
77 Robertson Quay
Singapore 238253
T: 6733-8464
Opening Hours: 12pm -3pm, 6pm - 10pm
Closed on Wednesdays

Sapporo Ramen, is arguably the best ramen in Japan, and with over 1,000 ramen shops and a street dedicated to the craft of a ramen shop, needless to say, we were excited when we heard word of this Sapporo Ramen shop that imports its ingredients and noodles from Sapporo, Hokkaido.

This shop sits about 20 people inside and the about 10-15 people outside. Despite the fast food nature of this food, this place acquires a queue pretty quickly. On our first attempt, we arrived in the middle of the lunch hour, and the estimated wait for about 20-30 minutes. If they are already full, what you have to do is put your name down in the book that they have in front of the shop, and wait for them to call out your name. Hunger got the better of us on our first attempt, and so on your return attempt, we arrived early and we inched out the crowd by 5 minutes. Just as we sat down and ordered, more hungry and patient people came and penned down their name in the wait book.

Nosh: Ramen is the main feature of the menu, cold versions and hot version. The cold ramen is basically eaten like a cold soba/somen, the ramen with a small bowl of soup that you dip your noodles in, but for today’s ramen outing, we focused on the hot soup versions of ramen.

They serve a few versions of ramen here. The noodles are from Sapporo, but they have a variety of soup bases and extras that you can add on. From the soup range, we selected the Tokensen Sho-yu, Tokensen miso and the Tokensen Tori-Shio, and if you are feeling greedy, you can “upsize” your fast food to a larger bowl for $2, or add bamboo shoots, an additional egg, char siew and Japanese leeks, whatever you think would enhance your ramen.

The large white bowls arrived in about 7 minutes and the slurping began. The noodles were well textured and chewy, and the broth had a layer of oil that allowed the noodles to glide down your throat easily. That being said, I have come to realise that my bowl of ramen was probably not the healthiest thing – salty soup, fatty pork, layer of oil that laced my soup, nonetheless it was tasty bowl of noodles. Aside than being tasty, I was rather disappointed. If I had to wait for 30 minutes for that bowl of noodles, I would not wait, but if I could walk in for a taste bowl of noodles and to rush off to my other activities, my palate will be satisfied.

Pay: $12 a bowl of ramen.

Service: The only thing I admire about Mac D is their very efficient service. Despite it being a fast food joint here, the only fast part about the service is that your food comes fast, other than that, you will get very little assistance figuring out how the table system works.