Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Menya Shinchan Japanese Noodle Restaurant, Robertson Quay


I've noticed this place (30 Robertson Quay, #01-05 Riverside View, tel: 6732 0114) for quite a while already. I've never really paid it much attention beyond noticing as it's wedged at the back, behind Ryoriya Sangokushi and out of sight often meant out of mind. Until the mentioning by a couple of friends, I probably wouldn't have recalled this ramen place with a name that reminded me of Crayon Shinchan. Lol.

Names aside, the shop created quite an impression due to an incident that I will not mention. Suffice it is to say that the owner belonged to the type who took pride in his food. Which kinda goes along with what is explained of the history of this place that is set up by a Japanese guy living here who likes ramen.


This was something that one probably doesn't see often in our ramen shops called mazesoba. It's essentially a bowl of dry (non soup based) ramen heaped with fried shallots, some toasted and crispy noodle bits, crunchy pieces of cabbages, bean sprouts, shredded pork and sliced pork. Interestingly, there was a also a dollop of mayo and a slice of cheese. I tried this because it didn't look like any other ramen. The presence of cheese helped in that decision too even though it was just of the regular sliced variety. As it turned out, this is pretty damn tasty. There was a nuttish and mildly spicy gravy at the bottom.

The noodle that was used was much thicker than usual and there was an option to choose between soft and hard noodles which was determined by how long the noodles were cooked. This, I really appreciate since I felt that most ramen were too soft. The thicker noodles here were quite firm and I thought it wasn't bad at all. The yolk of those eggs that you see are amazingly soft in spite of their non runny appearances. The sliced pork? Very tender indeed.


There were a couple of options for the strength of the ramen broth here. The choice between rich or thin flavour. The base of the broth included seafood, shio, shoyu and miso. The seafood broth as they explained had sardines in the soup base but I thought it tasted like dried anchovy (ikan bilis). 

Exercised the hard noodle option and the al dente like texture was very agreeable with me. I spied a large bowl of their signature sinjiro ramen sitting in the front of another diner. Something tells me I'll be back to try some of that.

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