Ramen Santouka

The latest Ramen restaurant to hit the Japanese dining scene is Ramen Santouka (Central Mall, #02-76).

It serves ramen with pork bone broth, with a wide selection of meats and accompaniments.

DH stumbled upon this place when he had to take a late lunch near his workplace.

I am sure there have been several comparisons between this place and Marutama ramen already (ramen restaurants which originated from Japan, authentic Japanese chefs, both located in Central Mall).

Although we usually go to Marutama Ramen, due to an embarrassing incident, I have decided to avoid that place for a while... so it was really lucky that DH found this new Ramen Joint.

Embarrassing Incident

I was chatting happily with the lady cashier, who took our orders and served us too. She had a slight japanese accent, so I (naturally and presumptiously) assumed that she was Japanese. So everything that I said to her centred on how difficult it must be for her to relocate here.

As we left:

DH (whispering conspitorially) : tell you a secret...
Me (wide-eyed and innocent) : what, what?
DH: She wasn't Japanese.
Me (gasp of horror) : she wasn't?!?!
DH: Yeah when you said it must be so hard for the family when she moved here. She looked totally bewildered... and then she just continued the charade cos it would take more time to explain the mistake to you...
Me: I can never go there again!


So... as I said, it is really fortuituous that DH found Ramen Santouka.

The place isn't very big, but we figured by Japanese standards, it is considered quite large since there were about 4 tables that can seat 4, and several tables for 2 along the window. No counter seats... The counter was only for serving ramen.

Here is DH, aka Mr Mysterious, waiting for his ramen. He has informed me that he cannot be featured on this blog because he is a very important person who might be recognised by his adoring fans. Therefore, all photos of DH henceforth shall be blurred out or of focus like this.

DH ordered the house speciality - tokusen toroniku (sliced pork cheeks) with miso ramen (SGD19.50). There are only 80 servings of this speciality a day because only very little meat is harvested from the cheeks of a pig. DH ordered the upsized version for SGD 2 dollar. For dainty eaters, you can opt to downsize the noodles and save SGD1.

Can you see how thick the soup is? I do find it rather salty and intimidating. But it was nevertheless very tasty. The noodles were chewy and bouncy.

DH's sliced pork cheeks and condiments arrived separately from his ramen. I really like the pork cheeks. They were not very fatty, but were in fact very tender and chewy. A little salty though.

My own order of cha syu ramen with salmon roe don (SGD19.50). The rice was nothing to shout about, I just wanted to try something different.

My choice of spicy miso soup base was good. It was very tasty, and spicier than I had expected. They use chili padi you see.

The pork in the ramen were all different - 1 slice of cha syu, 1 short pork rib and 1 long pork rib. The pork ribs were fatty but tender. The cha syu was melt in the mouth tender.

Ramen is getting very expensive these days... With additional orders of boiled eggs, our lunch exceeded SGD50 with GST.

I quite like it, although I find the ramen rather heavy on salt, oil and taste. Maybe I will try the downsized version next time.