The place was packed. We had to line up for about 20 minutes in the cold outside. There were 5 of us, so a little tricky seating us in a small-midsize restaurant with limited space. They were playing hip-hop music.
I ordered their signature bowl, Tsukemen $11.95 You have the choice of shoulder, belly or both. I chose the lean one – shoulder, and to be served warm. I was surprised to see the contents in Japanese (romaji)…who will know what it is if they don’t understand Japanese? It has 2 slices of pork chashu, negi (green onions), memma (flavoured bamboo shoots), aji-tama (flavoured egg), and nori (seaweed). For the broth, you have the option to get the original (which I got), spicy and karamiso (spicy miso).
1 friend ordered the Tonkotsu $9.95. He liked the noodles, but wasn’t all that impressed by the broth. He liked Danbo’s broth more which we had tried a week earlier.
Another was brave to try out the Tomato Cheese $12.75, and the other 2 had the Tsukemen as well. My friend with the Tomato Cheese was not happy. We all had a bite and it tasted like tomato pasta or pizza. It wasn’t at all Japanese like, and it didn’t really go well with the pasta-tomato like sauce. And tofu in a bowl of ramen? Friend’s rating: 2/5
My broth was rather lukewarm. I told the others which was their first time trying a tsukemen ramen that the broth was usually quite concentrated and salty since you were suppose to dip a bit and not ‘dump’ all the noodles in it for a long period of time.
It was a bit embarrassing to find that, that was not the case. I ended up putting all the noodles into the soup bowl. It lacked a richness to it. It was ok, but would not order it again. My rating: 3/5
I also ordered a Okonomi Gyoza $4.50 to try out with everyone. Luckily, it had 5 pieces. It was interesting…just bonito and okonomi sauce on gyoza. (If you order the side sides with a ramen bowl – which I suppose most would be having a ramen, the side orders are only $3.50)
Service was satisfactory. I would like to try something simple, like the Torigara next time to try out a ramen in a soup base before I conclude my final decision on the place. That means I’ll be back!