Ridiculous about Ramen

If there is one Japanese dish I am absolutely nuts about, it is Ramen. I am glad I had the opportunity to try out some ramen places in Tokyo during our December trip, although we did not 'hit' as many places as I would have liked.  I was pretty sad about missing out on Chabuton Ramen when I was at Akihabara-Yodabashi. My kids wanted to eat tonkatsu that day and, being the good mummy that I was, I deferred to their choice and that being near the end of the trip, I didn't have a chance to visit Chabuton thereafter.

So, after eating much ramen in Singapore, and some in Tokyo, what do I think constitutes a good bowl of ramen?

You will get many differing views on this question. Even my husband and I have different opinions and favourites when it comes to ramen.

Firstly, in any ramen comparison, I believe it is important to compare like with like. There are many styles of ramen and types of broth, and it is important to know what we are comparing. For example, there are 4 main soup bases - Shio, Shoyu, Miso and Tonkotsu. My favourite is the Miso Ramen.  Because Miso soup base tends to be richer and more flavourful, it would not be fair to compare it against the others (which when tasted side by side will seem less tasty).  In terms of noodles, there is the usual thick curly noodles (even then there are variations as to thickness and curliness, too much detail for me to go into here) which is more common, and the less common  (although increasingly popular) one that I prefer- the thin, straight Hakata-style noodles.

Ramen afficianados will usually judge ramen by 4 main components: soup base, ramen, egg and chashu.

I have yet to find a ramen place that can wow me with all 4 components. For example, in terms of soup base, Ippudo's is really hard to beat. It is complex in flavour and absolutely umami. The addition of its black garlic oil, coupled with the MANY tiny bits of white pork fat floating in the broth, contributes to its incomparable flavour, and though I don't love the price, I have to admit they make a pretty unbeatable miso soup base. Unfortunately, the noodles are not nice, the egg is ALWAYS overcooked, and the chashu varies in quality, sometimes tough and sometimes soft.

Recently I tried Seiya Ramen in Shinkoiwa, Tokyo, which serves only Tonkotsu Ramen.  Its broth was the absolute best tonkotsu broth I have had (WAY better than Tampopo in Singapore, which is so thin I wonder why it is still so popular).  But what really sold me too was that the Chashu was melt in the mouth, and the egg, well let me just say that it was PERFECT, with its white cooked but its yolk completely thick and oozy without a speck of undoneness. Apart from the fact that the egg wasn't sufficiently flavoured with shoyu (looked a little pale on the outside), that was one happy bowl of ramen. And they served it with thin noodles too. I don't remember being so happy with a non-miso ramen for a long time.

Seiya Ramen-Round One. LURVE!!

It was so good I had to go back a second time. Which brings me to the next point - what makes a good ramen is consistency.  Which is really hard to come by. I have not yet eaten at one ramen place that is consistent from visit to visit, branch to branch. The second time I visited Seiya, it was as if I was eating a different bowl of ramen. The soup was more dilute, the egg was overcooked, and the chashu was tougher. You can see from the picture below that it different from the one above.

Seiya Ramen - Round Two. Blah.

On another night, we tried Kuro Taiko Ramen in Shinjuku, which is one of my husband's favourites. The miso broth was very good, not as good as Ippudo, but a close second. The noodles were fantastic in terms of texture and springiness. Egg was again overcooked and chashu average, and I would have been very pleased with the experience if not for the fact that, out of 3 bowls of miso ramen, 1 bowl was significantly more dilute than the other 2. What gives?? In the same meal? Prepared by the same chef? Perhaps it was near closing time and he wanted to stretch his last bit of broth into an extra few bowls. Still, the inconsistency is disappointing. I thought it was a problem only in Singapore, where many ramen places start off well (especially when the Japanese master chef is still around) only to drop in standards subsequently. But apparently inconsistency is a problem that plagues not only ramen places in Singapore, but also in a competitive ramen environment like Tokyo.

Kuro Taiko Ramen

Of course, for a person who thinks too much about ramen, I had to share my thoughts with my husband.  Who, even though he is a ramen freak who has eaten way more ramen than me on his countless business trips to Tokyo, finally concludes that I am too fussy and that I obsess too much about egg doneness and chashu, and other details.  "It's a good, above average ramen" he would say, and that's that.

Which is enough to remind me not to be such a ninny about ramen (among other foods), and just enjoy it for what it is - superb comfort food.