the ramen blog & other goodies!

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.

Wow! The first thing you’ll notice when you open the lid is how many packets of goodies there are. It was almost like a magic trick of never-ending flavor packets. There are FIVE packets of ingredients: there’s the obligatory soup powder (aka MSG), the liquid soup base, a packet of fresh ginger, one for onions, and finally, a packet of toppings. Toppings include very ordinary sesame seeds, somewhat special judas ear (fungus!), and a slice of pork.

The skinny tonkotsu noodles were just about perfect for instant ramen: chewy and flavorful. It soaked up the soup nicely and retained a rich pork flavor. The skimpy (sesame seeds, fungus, and ginger?! that’s it?!) toppings worked well together…well…except that I absolutely detest ginger, so I gave that to my wife (hi hon!). The pork was an unfortunate ultra-thin slice of…well, it was bacon-like, but then again, who eats boiled bacon? Luckily that the only thing that detracted from this ramen. Onwards to the soup! (more…)

I seem to be cursed when it comes to Daikokuya. The first time I tried to go, the owner was on vacation, and they were closed. I ended up at Kouraku across the street. Then as I typed up this review and was *almost* finished, my browser decided to crash. So let me try this again…

I’ve been anticipating a visit to Daikokuya for a long time, after reading some rave reviews. As I stepped into the restaurant, I felt like I was transported back in time to a 50’s (or maybe 60’s?) Japanese diner. The restaurant has a great nostalgic atmosphere, from the red diner stools to the vintage signs and props that decorate the place. Since I arrived at an off-hour, the place was empty and the service was fast.

Daikokuya serves only one style of ramen: the Daikoku ramen, with kurobuta pork (”the pork for royalty”) and a tonkotsu soup lovingly cooked for nearly a day. The best value at Daikokuya is the ramen/rice bowl combo, which comes with your choice of 8 different rice bowls or fried rice. I chose to go with the tempura don, which was quite good…nothing spectacular, but good. (more…)

This one is kind of interesting. It’s a kaedama kyushu hakata style ramen. Basically it includes a extra serving of noodles per soup packet (the “kaedama“). The noodles are the skinny hakata style, and though I prefer thicker noodles, these had a nice texture to them. The tonkotsu soup was decent but not extraordinary. This gets a 6.5 (extra half point for the extra noodles!).

Right to the point…this ramen wasn’t good. The noodles were bland, and a bit soft. The soup was really tasteless. It gets a 4.