Ramen Makotoya, Zhongshan North Road @ Zhongshan District, Taipei

Came across Ramen Makotoya (No. 142, Minsheng West Road, Datong District, Taipei) by chance and was intrigued by their gyukotsu ramen which appeared to be a specialty. From what I gathered, the ramen-ya originates from Fukushima, Osaka.

Kaki frys had a nice crispy crust which wasn't excessively oily. Oysters were pretty good quality. Wished they were bigger though. 😬 

Gyozas were ordinary and had the textbook flavours. While it meant on one hand that they were competently done, they were also kinda boring. 😅

The milky broth of their gyukotsu was intriguing. There was a discernible beefiness and butteriness in it with undertones of mushrooms. Yeah, that mushroom-y element was pretty integral to the flavour. 

Overall, nicely done bowl. Wished the noodles were harder but otherwise, enjoyed it. If anyone was wondering, those charshu disintegrated in the mouth.

Not a fan of their shoyu bowl which I found to be too sweet. All that sweetness from the cabbage made it taste Chinese.

Their charshu don looked pretty ordinary. It was delicious in that ordinary sense with the sweet caramelized cubes of tender charshu, a richness from the molten yolk of the egg and the negi to cut through all of those. 

Once you've mixed in the pureed garlic (which you can request for) and a splash of gyoza white vinegar, this became addictively moreish. Outstanding. 👍🏼

Revisiting the mazesoba from Ramen Hitoyoshi (ラーメン人吉)

Been a while since we last had the mazesoba here. The bowl's the same. Didn't change and I certainly didn't expect it to be any different. What's changed here was that the sesame seeds are now in pepper mills and not sesame seed grinders which made it a huge...I mean huge pain in the ass grinding because those pepper mills just don't work well for sesame seeds. 😓 

Japanese bak chor mee some say. Not gonna disagree with that.

Revisiting Ikkousha @ Chijmes

Back at Ikkousha. Here's the bonito tonkotsu bowl I mentioned previously.

Their Gold Fried Rice didn't look particularly golden. 😂 It's not bad tasting though. With some pepper and spicy takana/pickled mustard greens (which you can help yourself to), it noticeably improved in my opinion.

Torasho Ramen & Charcoal Bar, Tras Street

We've been wanting to try Torasho Ramen & Charcoal Bar (32 Tras Street, tel : +65 6970 5055) for quite a while.

Finally got to do so recently. Food can be pretty pricey. Decent tasting but I wouldn't say it's great value for money.

These were their uni pillow. Sea urchin on seaweed topped with shiso flower. Each piece is...a little smaller than a one biter. Maybe 66-75% of a bite for me. Decent quality but wayyyy too small for $18 a pop.

Mapo ramen spiciness level 3. Heat packed much more punch than I imagined and I was glad we didn't shoot for a higher level. This was presumably the Japanese Chinese mapo gravy and didn't have much of the fermented bean flavour compared to the Chinese renditions. Not bad tasting as a whole but I'm not big on the texture of the noodles.

Tried their cold stupid ramen. In retrospect, I felt stupid paying $69 paying for this bowl which has a pretty predictable flavour profile of truffle oil and ikura that's kinda pervasive these days. Was the quality of this bowl exceptional? I did not think so. Seafood quality's decent and that's about all the good I could think of from it. Will never happen again.

Next Shikaku, Westgate

So another oyster broth ramen has sprung up (B1-28 Westgate, 3 Gateway Drive Mall, tel : +65 6592 5060). Next Shikaku from Osaka. The place looked a lot like a local bar/karaoke/watering hole than a ramen-ya. They claim that they specialise in using the freshest oysters in their ramen broth and I'm of the opinion that superlativity smells like rats.

They've been hyped as the first experiential oyster ramen store here. What in the world does that even mean? 🤔

This was their koeru bowl. Broth's creamy, smooth and has oyster flavour. Umami is a good word. But if one is looking for oyster-ly, this has nothing on the bowl from the defunct Keisuke Plus. It's actually less oyster-ly than the paitan bowl from Konjiki Hototogisu which I thought was decent until Keisuke Plus opened my eyes. 

With expectations laid from a place that claims to be an oyster broth ramen specialist, this was kinda underwhelming. Not a bad bowl of noodles though. Just wished that there was more than a lonely sad oyster in there.

I liked their asobu tsukemen better. Noodles were wide like pappardelle and had a nice firm bite to them. They were served in chilled water to preserve said texture but it also meant a lot of drips went into the dipping broth. Which was a more intense version of their koeru broth I think. Accented with pink peppercorn for that extra bit of floral note.

Beef sushi's nice. Thin sliced, fatty and flavourful with a small mound of rice.

Brothers Ramen: why the Spicy Dry Megamen again

I topped up $1.80 for the bonito and mayo for my bowl today. Just for the experience (一, 二 , 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一). Why this one again? Because again, I was hoping to get their niboshi bowl and it was not available. I wonder if that's permanently unavailable or do I just need to get it early in the day. Anyone knows?

I didn't dislike the add ons. It was nice for a bit but the mayo sorta wore its welcome from surfeit. Got tiring after a while because of the added creaminess on top of the already flavour bomb. Bonito's nice. Pretty big bowl though. In retrospect, I'm pretty happy with the basic megamen spiked with extra garlic. That's the clean flavour that endures the entire bowl.

Suspicious Hiro

Sushiro (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九,十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六) is a pretty good place for fries and beer. #notjustsaying. Their fries are pretty decent IMNSHO and their mugs of Suntory have consistently been served satisfyingly chilled. Anywaysss...another compilation of eats. Some new, some old...some kokumi, some cold. 🤔 What's that last one again?

Shake and ikura gunkan. Nice with those pink fatty slivers of salmon and bursty briny roe.

Guilty pleasure of mentaiko and mayo gunkan.

Sujiko is apparently in season.

What's better than a sujiko wrap is a sujiko wrap with aburi-ed shirako! This one was both briny and creamy.

Uni croquette. The inside was hot, smooth and creamy. This was nice but I'm not sure what to make of the inside because I'm not sure if I tasted uni or not. But it's nice.

We've never gotten the corn mayo gunkan before so here's a first. Those firm corn kernels were not bad tasting. 

Houbou nigiri. Red gunnard. Fish was freshly fried and pretty good eating. Crispy tail's edible.

The uni season brings their uni butter dry ramen. Noodle texture aside, this wasn't bad with the uni and uni cream sauce and butter. There's onions and shiso to cut through the creaminess.

Tuna toro with lumpfish caviar. Needs more caviar.

Matsukasa cut squid aburi-ed and glazed with shoyu. Quite nice. Better than the generic raw variety because the torching imparts the squid-y flavour.

Uni & avocado with lumpfish caviar wrap. I liked this. Ordered it with low expectations and it turned out pretty good and creamy. Pretty sure there was something citrus like yuzu in it. Have had this a few times. Nice.

Miso soup with seaweed and okra.

Strawberry panna cotta's not great. The pudding tasted like a thin strawberry milk. Most of the strawberry flavour came from the sauce and those seriously chilled diced bits of fruit.

Edamame tempura. Think the bean clusters were held together with mashed potato.

Salmon with Hokkaido cream cheese and basil pesto. Nice. Cream cheese added an enjoyable creamy richness to this.

Salmon with Camembert. Not as tasty as the one with cream cheese. Camembert was muted in flavour.

Shiojime cod tempura. Looked nothing like their product shot. Fish was a lot smaller. This tasted like fish and chips on rice. Did not taste bad at all but I expected a much bigger piece of fried fish.

Not feeling much with the shiojime cod. Yes this was the raw version of the previous fish. Meat was firm but didn't have much identity.

This was puchi puchi tobiko mozuku gunkan. Gemini tells me that puchi puchi is an onomatopoeic word that sounds like the popping or bursting of bubbles. In other words, bursty. I get it. Tobiko is flying fish roe and mozuku is a type of seaweed. Flavour's vinegary.

Chicken meatball gunkan.

Sesame marinated Japanese sardine. Not fond of this one. The marinate stripped most of the natural character, both flavour and texture, from the fish. There's some yuzu flavour in it which wasn't enough to win me over.

Marinated hotaru ika in squid ink. Strong briny and squid-y flavour. No squid ink taste. Pretty salty. Wouldn't eat it again.

A guilty pleasure of shredded crabsticks and mayo.

Menu called this aglio olio. It's kinda it. Japanese udon aglio olio I suppose. Garlicky and spicy with loads of small meaty clams. This was delicious with a few squeezes of shoyu. Nice! 👍🏼

Current seasonal dessert is cheese datemaki melba. I'm not sure where the 'cheese' part came in but I like the eggy datemaki. Soft serve on the side has a nice vanilla taste.