Mia's Food Trail Review: Shin Sapporo Ramen

After my review of Penang Culture and Chicken Up from my Century Square Food Trail, I'm finally putting up the 3rd restaurant review, Shin Sapporo Ramen! 

Being a huge ramen fan, I've tried them out when they first opened at B1 of Century Square and I found them pretty okay.

Wakayama Tonkotsu-Shoyu Ramen - $14.80

It's funny how you put tonkotsu and shoyu together to get a slightly miso-like taste. Alright, I'm over-simplifying it here. The broth is like a thick, flavourful tonktsu broth but packed with more savoury saltiness to it. And as you can see, there's a good drizzle of flavoured oil in the broth as well, so this is probably not the best choice for ladies who prefer a lighter tasting ramen. But for me, who do enjoy a good authentic tasting ramen, this is really not a bad choice.

 Abura Soba - $14.90

One of their latest noodle creation, a dry ramen, tossed in delicious seasoned oil and served with braised charsiu, menma and an onsen egg.

The noodles, more on the salty side, has an amazing sesame oil fagrance with a peppery kick to it, which I absolutely loved. The braised charsiu were tender, and the runny onsen egg just completed the whole dish just like topping a cherry on a glass of magarita. 

I wasn't really that eager to try out a dry ramen, but this really won me over and I'm so glad I tried it. 

 Hiyashi Chuka Soba - $13.80

This cold noodle dish, though really colourful and instagram-worthy, isn't going to be my choice of noodle... at any ramen shop. Not that I'm against cold noodles (I love chasoba, btw) but hiyashi chuka has this distinctive vinegar-ish sour taste that I really do not appreciate. 

I know, something cold and sour does sound really appetizing, but just not for me. 

 Chuka Tofu - $4.80

Another cold dish that didn't go very well with my tastebuds, sadly. The gravy was way too salty, and the tofu too stiff. I was at least expecting a softer, more fluffy bite to the tofu but it came on way too hard, and with this 'raw' icy taste to it. 

Haru Salad - $4.80

With crisp lettuce, fresh cherry tomatoes and yummy sweet corns mixed together in one bowl, it's hard to find anything wrong with this dish. This is a salad so refreshing on the palate that I can easily wolf it down without any form of dressing, olive oil, lemon juice or whatsoever. 

 Chocolate Lava Cake - $8.80

When the staff first recommended their chocolate lava cake to us, saying that many customers specially visit for this cake, I was really skeptical. 

Chocolate lava cake at a ramen shop, really?

It took nothing more than just one bite for me to know why.

Molten, decadent chocolate sauce just oozed out of the soft, moist cake with a slice of the knife. Every single bite of the cake was just moist, rich and extremely chocolatey. If you're a chocolate lover, this is a dessert capable of driving ALL your blues away, no joke. 

Shin-Sapporo Ramen is located at Century Square, B1-10/11

For more information, visit their Facebook HERE

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia's Review: Tonkotsu Kazan Ramen

So I was back at Velocity @ Novena Square for my 2nd Clear SK appointment (which I will blog about them in time to come) last Sunday and T still accompanied me down this time even though he couldn't use the car and had to take public transport down with me, plus self-entertain and loiter around the 4 malls (Velocity, Novena Square, Square2, United Square) for 1.5 hours while I'm having my facial done at Clear SK. 

But that also means, dinner here at Velocity/Novena Square/Square 2/United Square! 

And look what T has found!

One of my favourite food, Ramen! 

And this is the Tonkkotsu Kazan Ramen located at Square 2. It was pretty crowded when we got there at about 8 plus, and the small ramen-ya remained pretty packed up until we left at almost 9pm. Pretty popular huh! You'll find out why. 

And this is how small the entire place is. Erm, sorry uncle, I didn't mean to snap a picture of you slurping the hot ramen... 

So T chose a pretty 'usual' Karamiso Kazan while I decided to try something new and went for their Hinomaru Tomato Kazan. And then we were first served these jugs of soup....

Then this intimidating "volcano" ramen is served, dry in the super hot stone pot. The server will then pour in about half of the soup in the jug and close the red lid back on. Then you wait for 1 minute (there's a cute little timer on your table), until you see smoke rising from the top opening of the lid and, and remove the lid, pour the rest of the soup in and viola, you get your kazan ramen done!
I'll definitely advise that you get the staff to help with removing the lid for it'll be VERY hot.

Tadaa~ My Hinomaru Tomato Kazan Ramen,

I think this ramen will be the best choice for ladies, filled to the brim with a huge tomato, tons of cabbage shreds, beansprouts and red capsicums. The pork bone based broth is further 'spiced up' with a tangy flavour from the tomatoes, giving it a lighter and refreshing taste to the usual heavily flavourful ramen tonkotsu broth.
Seriously, I think that all the cabbage and beansprouts combined is twice as much as the noodles inside. Having a ton of beansprouts seemed to be how they do their ramen, so if you dislike beansprouts, please make a special order request to not add them in! It'll be a painfully infinite process if you have to pick them out one by one.

T's Karamiso Kazan Ramen.

The broth was strongly flavourful, yet not spicy at all. So we're both a little disappointed. The charsiu, however, was heavenly! So thoroughly braised, and has the right amount of fattiness to make it tender and soft. I took a bite and it literally like melt apart in my mouth.

Their flavoured egg was pretty disappointing too.
Yes, the yolk was almost perfect with the outside moist and just cooked through while the innermost is glistening gooey, but... where's the braised flavour?! It was pure white throughout on the insides and the surface was only so ever slightly tanned that on first look I thought it was just a soft boiled egg. Taste wise, same thing.
This is just a soft boiled egg sold as a flavoured egg. Period.

Yaki Gyoza.

My first impression when I saw these burnt gyoza was also another mental thumbs-down. But hey, I was surprised when I took a bite! The slightly charred flavour actually added more taste to the gyoza, while the meat filling remains tender and moist.
Failed on the presentation, but passed with flying colours on the actual taste. :)

Tonkotsu Kazan Ramen is located at Novena Square 2 #02-68/69
For more information, visit their FB page HERE

Have you checked out my Christmas Lush Giveaway yet? Drop by HERE to find out how you can win home a Cinders bath bomb and a Snowcake bar!

Till then,
Mia Foo

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Mia's Review: Keisuke Tonkotsu King Ramen

Once again, it's my favourite food. Japanese Ramen! :) 

This shall be a review of my... 2nd visit to Keisuke Tonkotsu Ramen located at Orchid Hotel, which is within walking distance from Tanjong Pagar MRT station exit A. They do have a mid-day break time, which I'm guessing is between 3-ish pm to 6pm. But you may start queuing as early as 5:30pm, for when we got there at about 5:45pm on a weekday, we were 3rd in line. 

One reason why the queue is (almost) everlasting is because the ramen shop is really, truly, extremely small.

The interior is decorated with poster-plastered walls like so and that's the entire width of the shop, really. Just enough to place 3 sets of tables across. There's another line of table right behind us, and then another 1 or 2 near the entrance and that's it. But fret not, for the queue does move moderately quickly as patrons will never hog the table to chit-chat, it's really the last place one will ever want to chillax over a bowl of ramen. So everyone is basically a eat and go. 

Right in queue, you will be handed the order sheet to make your order first before giving it to the greeter/server located at the entrance. My advice, go for NO oil and light. Less oil is not good enough, remember, NO oil. :)

Upon seated, you shall find 3 items set on your table. One grinder filled with white and black sesame seeds for every seat, one whole basket of hard boiled eggs (they're free flow, yes!), one tub of marinated bean sprouts. The marinated bean sprouts is really good! I'm never a fan of bean sprouts, but for these, I'll gladly go for seconds! 

As for the sesame seeds, you grind them down as fine as you'll like them to be and later on add them to your ramen for extra fragrance. :)

 And here's my red ramen, before and after mixing. In case you're wondering, the 'red' refers to rayu (chilli oil). There's also a black ramen option, which I believe is pepper. 

I first tried Keisuke last year and I checked less oil and light flavour then, it was served with a thick layer of oil over the broth and I was pretty grossed out even before I started eating. Needless to say, I didn't enjoy it at all. But this time, no oil seem to have done the trick. I actually found my ramen pretty yummy. :)
However, as I'm still a sapporo miso ramen lover, it still failed to top my list of favourite ramen in SG.

Even though Keisuke Tonkotsu is a famous Tokyo ramen chain, I find that their noodles resembles more of a Hakata/Kyushu ramen instead of the typical Tokyo style ramen with thin curly noodles and shoyu based broth. The broth is obviously a milky white pork bone broth, and the noodles relatively thin, straight and hard.

Lastly, the most important factor of a ramen. The ajitama (flavoured egg). As you can see, their egg somehow pales in comparison to other chains like Santouka, Ippudo and Marutama, which serves ajitama with yummy runny yolk and whites just done it jiggles.
For Keisuke, the egg is indeed well flavoured, but obviously overcooked.

For more information, visit their FB page HERE

Till then,
Mia

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Mia's Review: Santouka Ramen

I've always claimed to be a huge ramen lover and especially a fan of Santouka. But then I realised, over the countless times I've visited the branch at Cuppage Terrace, I've never done a review on them! So now's my really late review on Santouka, The Central branch.

As compared to the branch at Cuppage Terrace, this branch at The Central is a lot smaller and hidden right at the corner most area of the mall. It's pretty hard to find it even if you're determined to (especially if you do not have a good sense of direction) much less to say 'bump into it'. So to be full house at such a secluded location on a Sunday evening, it already hints you that your ramen can't be bad, yeah? :)

 Here's my usual order at Santouka, Kara Miso Ramen - approx. $16

Even though it looks horribly oily and fiery red, fret not! In comparison to many other ramen places, Santouka is considered one of the lighter taste ramen I've tried (which includes Tampopo, Marutama, Ippudo and Keisuke). The noodles are more to the soft, chewy side (I know some will prefer harder noodles, but not me) and their broth flavourful yet not overpowering. If you're a fan of strong taste (like Ippudo), you'll probably not like Santouka as I've friends who love Ippudo commenting that Santouka is too bland. IMO, Ippudo is just too much for me, and Santouka is just right. For their Kara Miso, the spiciness is just nice too! For an average spicy-eater like me, I can easily finish up the entire bowl of ramen without reaching for the water. The charsiu is also mildly flavourful and extremely tender, having a good mix of lean and fatty meat. It simply breaks apart at the first bite and the fatty portion just melts into your mouth as you chew on the lean meat.
Santouka's best ramen has got to be their pork cheeks ramen, but being not a very huge fan of pork in general, I do not see the attraction of paying that few dollars more for it. I'm satisfied with just their 'average' charsiu in my kara miso. :)

 

Although their ramen does come with bamboo shoots, I've decided to add on more, on top of the usual flavoured egg I'll order. Yes, Santouka's ramen do not come with flavoured egg, you got to add on an order for it. But it'll definitely be worth your money! Just look at that glistering sheen of their runny yolk peeking out from the cut. 

However, I'll recommend that you give their bamboo shoot a miss. This is the first time I've add on an order of bamboo shoot at Santouka, with the memory of those brilliantly tasty ones I've had at Daruma, and I was totally disappointed. Their bamboo shoots were served cold and utterly tasteless, with inconsistent tenderness/toughness in every piece. Not even worth a place in my tummy, much less to speak of the money. 

Just showing off the pretty flavoured egg. 

Their yolk, as i've said, is runny throughout with a pretty orangy yellow colour, and their whites thoroughly (yet soft) cooked. Very well done indeed!

Black pork gyoza - price forgotten

I'll say their gyoza is pretty mediocre, with the filling just being okay (almost not flavourful enough for me) and their skin thin, yet lacking the bite. Plus, we were recommended the more expensive black pork gyoza, which its taste really didn't justify the extra money spent. Even if they're actually handmade in the restaurant, a good brand of frozen gyoza could have easily tasted the same.

So, mehhhh.... stick to their ramen and flavoured egg while you're there at Santouka. Yes, you can try out their chawanmushi too, if you're in for more eggs. :)

Till then,
Mia

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Mia's Review: Marutama Ramen

 This is an extremely late post, for I've visited Marutama @ The Central with Airmeli after our diamond lash workshop held at Blisshouse. I've long heard about Marutama Ramen, it's always one of the names that pops up alongside Santouka (still my favourite!), Ippudo (urgh, too salty) and Tampopo (not bad) when you ask for ramen recommendations. So when Airmeli led me to the ramen shop, I was really excited and cheered, "Oh yay, Marutama!"

 

Their choices of ramen flavour is not really extensive. A very typical menu of an authentic humble ramen-ya. I ordered for myself a daikon and their Nama Karashi Ramen while Airmeli got a Tori Dango and their Aka Ramen.

 Daikon - $4

Yes, you might feel that $4 for 2 pieces of radish (although they're quite big pieces) is pretty much a rip off, but I didn't really care much for the pricey-ness of it because:

1. I really love daikon

2. They're really damn awesome!

The daikon is served almost piping hot in a rich & flavourful savoury broth, which tastes like tonkotsu/chicken broth, and is cooked down extremely well to be amazingly soft throughout. Each and every bite is 'stuffed' full of the savoury taste of the rich broth. I need not even chew on them, but just pushes my tongue towards the roof of my mouth to mash it up and release the broth that was soaked up within. 

Heavenly. Definitely a must try for all daikon lovers out there. 

 Tori Dango (Chicken Meatball) - $5

The Tori Dango is definitely a disappointment, and yes, it's not worth the $5. I expected the dango to be of, well, chewy dango texture. (duh!) But the first bite brought nothing but disappointment to my face. Nothing in this meat-packed ball is chewy. Instead, the entire meatball is soggy and crumbly. A soft bite to the surface easily breaks the dango in half and a few more bites just literally crumbles them into distinctive separate chunks in your mouth. Not my favourite kind of texture in a meatball. 

However, from a cooking noob's POV, I also wonder if it's because they're using a lot of real chicken meat and very little flour.

As for the taste wise, I can't fault them on it but shan't commend them on it either. It's a "typical" meatball taste, flavourful yet nothing distinctive that screams: I'm a chicken meatball! I guess the only thing that hinted it's chicken and not pork is the crumbly texture.

Airmeli's Aka Ramen - $15

 My Nama Karashi Ramen - $12

It looks just like a normal chicken broth ramen, yeah? But it's actually spicy ramen! This is one thing that is kinda intriguing to me. A 100% non-spicy looking spicy ramen!

The broth is rich, flavourful and has the spiciness level just right for me. 

I think I'm just an average spicy food eater, and I do not like to eat challengingly spicy food as I believe it doesn't do justice to the ingredients and preparer of the dish. :)

Comparing the richness of flavour to Santouka and Ippudo, Marutama is definitely smack in the middle. I feel that their broth is definitely richer than Santouka's yet still manageable for me, unlike Ippudo's, which almost killed me. 

Went Ippudo once, and plans never to return.

I do get a little thirsty while eating the ramen, due to the salty flavour of the broth, but I'm attributing it to the fact that I'm more of a lighter taste person. My preference for lighter taste is blatantly hinted in my obvious dislike for Ippudo's ramen.

As for the noodles, it hovers between chewy and hard imo, deviating slightly more towards hard. I'm a chewy (softer) noodle person, and Marutama's noodles really came this close to making it right for me. It was just a little bit too close to the hard side, but I can still accept it as well made noodles. 

The char siu was also pretty well done, having a good mix of lean and fatty meat, cooked to a savoury tenderness.

I'm also rather disappointed that the ramen wasn't served with menma (bamboo shoots) and it wasn't offered as an additional topping or side dishes either. 

And as seen from the picture, the ramen doesn't come with the flavoured egg (typical of many ramen shops) but need an additional $1.50 for an add on. 

Just look at the pictures, need I say more? The $1.50 is a MUST SPEND! 

I first poked my chopsticks into the whites and pulled off a huge chunk of it to reveal a fully intact yellowy orange yolk. I thought the yolk and overcooked, but how wrong I was! Look at how beautifully the glossy orange oozes out from the puncture I made with my chopstick! The egg is definitely well braised to a rich flavour and the whites is cooked to the point of having just solidifying. There's no obviously semi-transparent runny-ness anywhere in the egg whites, and yet they're amazingly soft, tears apart at the slightest pressure and runs down your throat effortlessly. 

I do feel that Marutama does their flavoured egg better than Santouka and Ippudo. :)

And in addition, Marutama offers Kaedama for those big eaters. With leftover broth and an additional $2, you can get your noodles refilled and eat to your heart's content! I'm not sure if it's a full portion refill though, because there's absolutely no way I can ever go for a kaedama. 

For those who've tried their kaedama, please let me know in the comment box!

Till then,

Mia

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Mia's Review: Kotobuki's Ramen

Just recently, I visited this new Japanese restaurant at ZhongShan Mall near one of my working locations with my colleague, as we were craving for some ramen. :)

The restaurant is extremely quiet for a lunch hour (actually the whole Mall is) with only 4 tables occupied, including ours. A flip through the menu (HERE) was pretty impressive with the relatively large selection of choices, even with Chinese/Korean fusion such as Mabo Tofu and Kimuchi Buta Itame (shallow fried pork with kimchi). I was really tempted to get the Kimuchi Buta Itame set but decided to stick to my original craving of ramen in the end, and ordered their recommended Spicy Ramen (spicy pork bone base ramen). The server asked if we would like to have the chilli served separately, and we just nodded our head without any apprehension of her question. Should I say, thank goodness we did.



 

 Spicy Ramen, $15. 

And that's the chilli that was served separately on the small dish, which kind of resemble a watery otah paste. I was all about to dump the entire lot of the chilli into my ramen when I suddenly decided to test out the spiciness. Once again, thank goodness I did, because it's ridiculously spicy for a calm orange paste! And so, I became extremely cautious, picking up minute amount of the paste and stirring it into my ramen before tasting the soup, making sure that the spiciness is still within the acceptable level before going for the next bit. The end result of the spicy ramen looked just like a normal tonkotsu ramen, it looked exactly like the picture on the right, no tinge of the spicy redness at all. But I can assure you, it taste just as spicy, or even spicer (because I always dump a lot of tongarashi nanami powder) than any other red hot spicy looking ramen we find elsewhere.

 And this two picture shows you the amount of chilli I've added into my ramen in total. It really wasn't a lot at all!

The ramen itself was kind of mediocre, with a badly done job for the noodles. The noodles still have the very distinctive taste of 'kee', the characteristic put-off taste of the yellow noodles we find in our prawn mee and lor mee etc. My colleague and I immediately made a face upon our first bite, and we immediately did the same thing. Added more chilli. Lucky us, we both decided to opt for the spicy ramen. I'd say the scary spiciness of the chilli covered up the 'kee' taste splendidly. The noodles' texture itself also has a lot of room for improvement, for I find it a little too tough and not Q (chewy) at all. I know some people prefer harder noodles, but not me. I've yet to go for my root canal and I can't chew well, alright?
Within the ramen were two pieces of charsiu, half of a flavoured boiled egg, menma (bamboo shoots), a handful of greens (I think they're spinach), and a generous topping of bean sprouts.
The charsiu was, OMG, friggin tough! I had a hard time battling with it, which left my colleague clearly amused and slightly bemused. I bit into the meat, hard, 3 times. All I've done was to left my distinctive bite marks on the piece of meat. After more biting, tugging, and chopstick twisting moments, I decided to give up and stuffed the entire piece of meat into my mouth for a long chew down. The meat itself was flavourful, slightly salty, which really wasn't too bad.
But oh please, I was expecting charsiu in my ramen, not bakwa!

The menma and flavoured egg was less disappointing, with the surprise find of a few extremely soft and tender pieces of menma in my bowl of ramen. The menma, although not chilly cold like straight out of the refrigerator, wasn't exactly as piping hot as the rest of the ingredient in the bowl either. So, I can't really decide if the chef has dumped the ready cooked menma straight from the fridge and directly into the ramen. Oh well, I hope not. The flavoured egg, although not as well done as Ippudo and Santouka, was still acceptable after the scare of the noodles and the bakwa charsiu. The outermost rim of the yolk has been cooked through to hard boiled standards, but the insides still remain watery crumbly, while the whites was fully cooked through. Not that bad.

Now to another most important aspect of the ramen, the soup base. I've tasted the soup prior to adding the chilli, just for a better gauge of the taste. I would say, it reminds me greatly of the ramen soup I had when I dined at places like Ajisen and Ramen Play. Tasty, yes. But truly good? Hmm, I can only say I merely drank up less than half of the soup and my glass of Calpis wasn't enough to quench my thirst thereafter.

With this as my first dining experience at Kotobuki, I won't say that I'll never visit this place ever again. But the next time I have a ramen craving, I probably won't choose to go there.

Till then,
Mia

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