Sunday, March 03, 2013

Menya Sanji, Orchid Hotel

Menya Sanji, Orchid Hotel

The number of ramen joints that have mushroomed in this island have started to becoming bewildering. Thankfully, my interest in them lies mainly within those of tonkotsu base and hiyashi chuka - which limits the ramen-ya that pique my interest.

Kagoshima's Menya Sanji (1 Tras Link, #01-14 Orchid Hotel, tel : +65 6604 8891) is located conveniently in the central Tanjong Pagar district not a minute's walk from Keisuke's Tonkotsu King. Kagoshima which is the capital of the Kagoshima Prefecture sits in Kyushu, southwestern edge. The ramen style is hence understandably similar to Hakata styled ramen. But not the same. I'm not an expert on these, but the noticeable difference was a less heavy hand in the salt and oil along with noodles that aren't thin and wiry.

The broth was creamy and rich and as mentioned, much less salty. I was about to make the analogy between this and the Kyushu style ramen with decaf coffee and regular coffee, but I guess that wouldn't be quite accurate. I'd eat this again if opportunity presented, but I probably wouldn't drink decaf. The eggs were in the hue of aged ivory but the flavour was somewhat absent. The other obvious thing was that charshu wasn't the soft variety. It was meaty and with much more bite.

Menya Sanji, Orchid Hotel

1 comment:

Daniel's Food Diary said...

I loved the soup, but did think that the char siew was slightly too tough.