Keisuke Ebi Ramen

The newspaper clippings outside this ramen restaurant at itadakimasu @ Parco Marina says the ramen here is different. Indeed, the stock here is made of prawns not the usual pork. So our interest was intrigued and in we went! We were greeted with a prawnish smell the moment we stepped into the restaurant.

We wanted to try the crab stock ramen as it was season limited. But the photo for this special ramen is so yucky, we decided against it. i think even i could have taken a nicer photo! So, we ordered the Ebi Ramen Special each instead.

Why is it called Special? Cos it has all the toppings in this bowl of ramen. And the toppings are really not your typical ramen toppings. There's chicken, prawn wanton, ajitsuke tamago and a greenish bamboo-looking vegetable. On top of that, there's orange peel (the orangey thingy that's on top the wanton) and some fine red thread-like thing. 

The orange peel is really interesting. i've not eaten orange peel with ramen before. It adds a tangy twist to the prawn stock. The soup is not bad but a tad too salty.

Marutama Ramen (Revisited)

Didn't mean to eat lunch but since i had to wait for my haircut so grabbed a quick bite instead of idling around.

Ate the Marutama ramen. My memory might have failed me but i thought it taste better than my first visit! :) Yummy! Or maybe i was hungry. The shop's not as crowded as before too.

No pictures for the day as i had forgotten to bring my cam out.

Overdosage

Forgot that i had promised S-san to bring her to baikohken after gym today. So, turned out that i ate ramen for consecutive three days! lol. Yucky Menichi on Sunday. Better Beppu on Monday. No more ramen for rest of the month! :p

Men-ichi @ JP

Ate the char siew ramen. The noodles not springy at all. The tonkotsu soup base too salty. The char siew ordinary. Presentation not appetising. Sum it up.... Don't try!

Tampopo @ Liang Court

Had the Shabu shabu black pig ramen. Yummy!! The pork bone soup is supposedly boiled for 2 days to the rich milky consistency. The thin slices of black pig looked sinfully fatty but it is not pulsating oily. They also have the deluxe miso ramen (Hokkaido style) which is completely different from mine. The deluxe has a slice of char siew, corn and butter, minced meat and an egg. The noodles are the curly type not the "rebonded" type like mine. Both ramen are oishii!

XX had the black pig tonkatsu set (the premium loin was sold-out so she got the normal one..) and she insist that i mention it in my blog. The tonkatsu is yummy too but i think the premium one would be yummier! lol. If the tonkatsu set looks similar to Tom Ton's, well, i just found out that they are under the same company.

Thankfully we were there quite early to be able to secure a table cos their reservations are full. When we left, it seemed that all the people in Liang Court are waiting outside the restaurant!

Went to the basement for some dessert. The pistachio flavour at the gelato kiosk Haato is worth trying. The rum and raisin can try if only you do not like the rest of the almost 20 flavours! :p

Ajisen @ Tiong Bahru Plaza

Talk about ramen! My colleagues suggested having ramen today. So we went to try out this newly opened restaurant in TBP basement. I had the Hokkaido seafood ramen set lunch which came with a side dish and drink. The ramen is simply OISHII!!! My only complain is that the noodles are too straight, not the curly type. Otherwise it would be perfect! The side dish i chose - white fish is just normal average deep fried fish. Portions are huge though. Good value for money. :)

Ramen Santouka

Really am obsessed with ramen this week! i had the Tokusen Toroniku Miso Ramen. Best pork i've had so far with ramen. The toroniku is the speciality here and i guess the oishii rating is probably because of the quality of the meat used. This is supposedly choice pork (heard its pork cheeks). The fat and the meat seemed to blend together you can't taste the fat. And it just melts in your mouth when you take a bite. OooOoo... It's almost heavenly if not for one major blunder - too salty. The rest of the bowl are nothing really to scream for.

Noodles - ordinary
Menma (bamboo shoots) - too tough and tasteless
Soup base - quite nice

$18 for a ramen is expensive but the portion is quite generous. There are 8 slices of choice pork, black fungus, menma and one slice of the japanese fish cake. Saw alot of Japanese eating here. Think i would return to try the normal char siew ramen to see how good their skills are in doing normal pork.

Another plus point. They have a small basket for you to put your belongings under your table so that you don't need to carry a big bag on your lap while you eat and no need to worry about getting your bag dirty by putting it directly on the floor. How thoughtful of them. (^_^)

Din Tai Fung @ Raffles City

Gosh! Today is ramen day. Had Japanese ramen for lunch and now Chinese la mian for dinner. :p

First visit to the Raffles City branch. Ordered the Noodle Soup with Fried Pork Chop and a 小菜. The 小菜 is just kelp with vermicelli and bean curd strips. Nothing special. The la mian was too soft and didn't taste handmade. i prefer crystal jade's la mian. The pork chop was nice and tender but somehow it just lacked the WOW factor.

Saw some very pretty desserts at Aerin's and not very expensive. Shall try them out when i have a camera on hand. :p

Oh. Saw Olinda Cho shopping at Agnes b. She looks quite petite leh... Not as tall as i thought she was.

Sapporo Ramen Bishamon (revisited)

Ate the Special Miso Ramen for lunch here again. But compared to my first visit, some things are no longer special.

No more special salty soup base. i think people might have complained to them.
No more special clumsy cook who made a hole in my egg. But in return, there was a special dunno-how-to-cook cook who made the egg too raw. The egg was supposed to be half-boiled with the yolk in a semi-solid state but mine turned out still liquid... And i thought the noodles were slightly undercooked too.

But some things are still special...
Special tough and fat singular piece of char siew. i don't mind fatty char siew in ramen cos most of the time they are nice and melt in your mouth. but this is really yucks!
Special expensive as there is only one slice of meat, some menma and corn.

2 minus and 2 plus = 0 --> Nothing special.

Shokudo @ Raffles City

Been raining cats and dogs this week, which means it is the perfect weather for RAMEN!! Ate the original char siew ramen which had only a miserable slice of tough pork, 4 pieces of menma (bamboo shoot), half a hard-boiled egg and 1 thin slice of fish cake in a bowl of overcooked ramen and half-warm soup. Perhaps i shouldn't be too picky considering its price ($8.80) but there ARE much nicer cheap ramen around. The whole place stink because of its open concept (i.e. Marche style). i had to run out as soon as i finished my ramen, smelling like it too. Feeling terribly unsatisfied with my dinner, i went to join the queue for donuts.

i didn't have my cam with me, which was just as well cos there's nothing to show anyway! (+_+)

Sapporo Ramen Bishamon

Was pouring today, which means it is the perfect weather for ramen! hehe. seems that ramen tens are sprouting all over recently. tried this new outlet @ Great World City for lunch.

i had the special miso ramen ($13). nothing special to me.

oh wait! it IS special.
special salty soup base. on par with ichibantei's.
special expensive cos there was only one single slice of char siew.. but at least there's more menma than usual.
special clumsy cook who made a hole in my ajitsuke tamago.
special strong tasting (very spicy and pungent) spring onions.

MOF の My Izakaya

finally a break from ajisen and ajitei. been eating there for 6 consecutive weeks!

XJ さん wanted to dine at pastamania but we couldn't find it. think it is under renovation. so its back to eating jap again. hehe.

some pics XJ さん took of the restaurant... thanks to XJ さん and her hp cam!

very quaint and nicely decorated place

XJ さん の tan tan ramen

私の miso char siew ramen (what else! :P)

i like the ramen and the soup. oiishii!! but the char siew is too tough... i didn't like it. XJ-san was telling me to order the miso charsiew ramen without charsiew! lol.

Ajisen Ramen

This was the first ramen i thought that taste vaguely like the one i had in sapporo. the one that makes the heart go warm (as i always tell my sensei! hee!)

i like this ramen, nice and chewy, always al-dente but would have preferred more curly noodles. another minus point is that it has no menma.

Baikohken Revisited

One colleague wanted to eat ramen cos the weather is cold..
One colleague wanted to twang as there's no managers around today.
So ended up here for lunch.

Miso Butter and Corn Ramen ($13.50) - Good! But SUPER big bowl.. I suspect all the miso bowls are this huge. Someone please remind me to order the half bowl next time. I spent half an hour eating this bowl and I managed to stuff everything down! yay!! oops! hehe! (^^,)v

I like the butter in miso soup. And I simply adore corn! Yep I'm a corny person. lol. (>_<)

Marutama Ramen

Location: 6 Eu Tong Sen Street #03-90/91 The Central

Finally ate at this raved ramen ten. Spur of the moment decision. Had reached at 5pm and was pleasantly surprised to see no queue at the door. Alas! It only opens at 5.30pm... Didn't want to waste my time waiting and looking like a super kiasu Singaporean, I went around the mall to look look see see. Went back at 5.20pm and to my horror, I am the 10th in the queue! (-_-")...

The chicken broth is a refreshing change from the usual tonkotsu, miso, syoyu and shio. Yummy! The ramen is well done but I find it slightly too thin (more like cantonese wanton noodles...) The charsiew is nice and tender. Only gripe about the place would be the price... For my bowl of Marutama ramen, there's only one lone piece of charsiew, some spring onions and seaweed... Price: $12++

Oh ya, saw WL in the same restaurant when I was leaving.

~ It's a small small world! ~

Ichibantei

Location: 60 Robertson Quay #01-01 The Quayside
Tel: 6733 1654

Tried みそチャーシュー面 miso charsiew ramen $11.80 (what else! :P). Too salty for my liking. My colleagues' 豚骨ラーメン tonkotsu ramen $10.80 is slightly better, not as salty. Ramen nicely cooked but too thick... Soup salty... Charsiew v.v.v. salty (and i thought i had already trained my taste buds to tolerate kotteri ramen after Hokkaido...) charsiew is not the usual round shape type, theirs is rectangular slice (another booboo....) the menma and ajitsuke tamago are good but not sufficient to save the bowl... the restaurant has a nice enviroment though... warm and cozy... too bad no photos... will only go back if someone "force" me to and if there's no other choice...

ラーメン物語 (ramen-monogatari)

＜ラーメンのタイプ＞ (Type of Ramen)

１）だしの種類 - 豚骨、鶏ガラ、魚介 (Types of broth: pork bones, chicken bones, fish and shellfish)

２）味付けの種類 - みそ、しょうゆ、塩 (Types of seasonings: miso, soy sauce and shio)

これらの組み合わせでタイプが決まるが、だしは複雑に混ぜ合わせている場合が多い。　油が多め、味が濃いめだと「こってり（している）」、油が少なめ、味が薄めだと「あっさり（している）」という。 The combination of the above ingredients determines the type of ramen. The soup stock is often a complicated blend. Ramen with a fair amount of oil and a strong flavour is called kotteri (rich), while noodles with little oil and a mild flavour are considered assari (light)

＜基本語句＞ (Basic Vocabulary)

• れんげ　-　スープを飲むのに使う中華料理用のスプーン。 renge: Chinese-style spoon for drinking soup

• トッピング　-　（ラーメンの）上にのせる具。 toppingu: ingredients put on top of ramen

• 味付け卵　-　煮て、たれなどをしみ込ませた卵。 ajitsuke-tamago: boiled eggs soaked in sauce

• チャーシュー　-　焼き豚。味付けした豚肉を蒸し焼きしたもの。 chaashuu: roast pork; the pork is flavoured and then roasted

• メンマ　-　タケノコの一種を薄く切って調理したもの。 menma: a kind of bamboo shoot that is sliced thin and cooked

• 鶏ガラ　-　（鶏の）肉を取った後の骨。 torigara: bones that remain after the (chicken) meat is stripped off

• 替え玉　-　追加用の一食分のめん。 kaedama: a second serving of noodles

• 完食　-　何も残さず、全部食べきること。 kanshoku: to eat all the noodles and drink all the broth of the ramen
  

自讨苦吃。。。

hahahah. now that the class is stuck with only 11 students, we have to speak more and more.... today's passage really tough.. even my fav soul food cannot help me.... had my usual miso char siew ramen again... i like the soup at ajisen. today's noodles is well cooked. too bad about the char siew.... too fat.... and too tough... i can't bite into it!

Ramen @ Baikohken

I love ramen! But it is very hard to find good ramen in Singapore... went to ate at this new ラーメン店 (ramen ten) around Raffles Place called 梅光軒 Baikohken. It specialises in 旭川　ラーメン(Asahikawa ramen) which basically is Hokkaido ramen since Asahikawa is in Hokkaido. It is the 2nd largest populated city in Hokkaido after Sapporo. Been missing the ramen since my visit to Japan 1 year ago.

I ordered the 味噌チャーシュー麺　(Miso char siew ramen). One plus point is that they serve the ramen with a special spoon. It looks like a normal chinese soup spoon but it can "hang" on the bowl! You can see this spoon on every ramen bowl in Hokkaido so I was pleasantly surprised to see it here! hee!

Anyway, the 4 components for tasty ramen.

1. Char siew
The char siew here is very lean. Very ideal for health conscious people. But I thought it might be tastier and more truthful to the authentic Hokkaido taste if it has slightly more fats. Still the char siew is succulent and full of flavour.

2. Bamboo shoots
I love that the bamboo shoots here are in big chunks. Cos elsewhere, sometimes they don't have bamboo shoots which is so vital in Hokkaido ramen. But the bamboo shoots are a bit tasteless today...

3. Ramen
My ramen is slightly overcooked but the springiness is still there.

4. Miso soup base
I like the miso soup. Not too salty but still have the good old miso flavour.

The bowl is HUGE and served with a generous portion of bean sprouts and spring onions. For the price $15.50, this is the most expensive ramen dish in the shop but very very filling. I would give it overall 3 out of 5. I will definitely go back again to try the other soup bases, 塩shio (salt) and 醤油syoyu (soya sauce). Also a good place for me to practice my japanese with the japanese cook! hehe..

Oh yes... the shop does not have service charge, only gst... :)