More than one person has taken me to task for not trying the tokusen toroniku (choice fatty pork) ramen at Santouka. Interestingly, not one of my friends think Santouka is very good. But then again, none of them have tried the toroniku either. So finally, I convinced two other ramen-loving (well, ramen-enjoying anyway) friends to go to Santouka and splurge on a toroniku free-for-all. (more…)
Day 2 of hakata ramen week continues with Ogawaya’s nagahamakko tonkotsu miso ramen. Ok, I’m actually cheating. I’m writing the reviews for day 1 and 2 on day 3, and I’m getting tired so I’ll probably write day 3’s review on day 4.
I think this is supposed to be based on an actual ramen-ya’s ramen. Surprisingly, this tasted very much like yesterday’s hakata ramen. At the time, I didn’t bother reading the label closely enough: same factory. Hmm…maybe not so surprising after all.
This ramen also had a bright orange soup, but was more fragrant; I could actually smell the miso. Like the pirikara ramen, these noodles were also prone to clumping and had almost the exact same great texture and taste, even though the instructions had different cooking times (2 mins vs 90 seconds). The soup isn’t spicy, which ironically gave it more flavor. The miso stood out, but I still couldn’t taste much of a pork flavor.
This ramen tastes a bit better than yesterday’s ramen, but the soup could still use some improvement. This gets a 7.
Our local Marukai supermarket is having a sale on a variety of hakata ramen so naturally, we had to buy them all! There were 5 different types. Guess what I’m having for dinner this week!
First up: the Ogawaya pirikara hakata tonkotsu miso ramen…whew! The bright orange soup had almost no smell, which was odd. The noodles were hard hakata style noodles, which were nice and al dente, and flavorful. These noodles tended to stick together while cooking, so you need to make sure you shake the noodles well or end up with a clumpy hard mess. The soup was mildly spicy, and that was about it. I couldn’t really taste the miso or the pork flavor. The spicy taste really reminded me of Korean spicy ramen, which isn’t a bad thing, but I didn’t think it went well with the miso tonkotsu flavor. This ramen gets a 6 out of 10…good noodles, so-so soup.
Disclaimer: I’m not too crazy about miso ramen and I’ve only had it a few times before. This one was decent though. The noodles are good, not spectacular, like the other Maruchan ramen I’ve reviewed before. The soup is a lot stronger than I expected…not like other miso ramens I’ve had. It’s not very “miso-y” though. I give it a 6.
