Firstly I find all of the different types of ramen truly mind boggling. The BFF and I stood in front of the vast menu board at Menya Noodle Bar in Chinatown for a good 15 minutes and ended up being more confused than when we walked in. Whilst we stood scratching our head ramen lovers walked right up to the counter to place their order without even a glace towards the menu board. What on earth where they ordering?
One thing is clear though - there are no pretty much no vegetarian options when it comes to ramen...you either go with chicken (tori gari) or pork (tonkotsu) broth. That said, the broth can sometimes be a mixture of both. There are also variations with or without miso/soy/fish stock added. The options are truly mind boggling.
After dilly-dallying over my order for nearly 20 minutes I should've gone with my usual "garlic" broth type of ramen as it really is quite tasty - Kogashi Ninniku ($11.30). Needless to say I had massive food envy over The BFFs bowl of aromatic and tasty ramen. The garlic really adds a great depth of flavour.
Compared to The BFFs garlic ramen my big steaming bowl of Ton-toro ramen ($12.30) seems rather bland...although the fatty pieces of pork belly are melt-in-the-mouth soft. Perhaps it would've been a bit more punchy with the addition of miso or shoyu (whatever that may be)....or perhaps one of those wonderful Japanese soft-yolked eggs.
I did order a side of VERY spicy eschallots that I added to my ton-toro broth which gave it a nice chilli hit. They were just a bit too spicy to eat on their own, but I gave it my best try anyway.
Do you have any tips on which is the best type of ramen to order? What is your favourite? HELP ME!
Menya Noodle Bar is at Shop TG8, 8 Quay Street, Haymarket.
