Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Orchard Road's little secret...

For ramen lovers, here's a new place to add to those ramen places that you frequent. The best part of it all? It's in the heart of town. Ken's noodle house is in Orchard Plaza. For those who are not familiar with the region, it's the building before Hotel Meridien and after Orchard Point (OG).

Ok, enough about the location. Let's move on to the food.

I tried the cha siew ramen while the bf tried the stewed egg ramen. In addition, we ordered gyoza too. The selection of ramen is less if you compare it to other ramen places like ramen ten, ajisen but I'm sure the quality of the food more than makes up for it. There's miso or shoyu ramen as well. Cold Soba for those looking for something else too.

After a short wait, the food arrived! Let's just say that I love the fact that Japanese are soooo big on presentation. The ramen arrived looking like those goregous window displays. Ken's noodle house's ramen is not only fantastic looking but also absolutely delicious. The ramen soup is cooked up to 8 hrs such that the flavours are immersed in the soup and makes you want to finish up the whole bowl of soup. My cha siew ramen came with 4 huge slices of char siew while the bf's had 2 slices and one stewed egg. His stewed egg was so beautiful. It looked like a normal hardboiled egg but when you bite into the yolk, it's like a lovely gold nugget of 3/4 boiled yolky goodness. :) The noodles were springy and at first glance, it seemed to be like the normal yellow egg noodles in other foodcourts. However, one bite into the noodles and the ramen speaks for itself. This is one noodle that is firm and springy, good to slurp up and lacks the artificial instant noodle or factory made taste. This is despite the fact that the noodles are made by a Japanese style factory in Malaysia(read from other sites).

The serving sizes are quite big so you are indeed getting your money's worth. It's about $12 for a ramen and $1/2 if you want to add other toppings. After the ramen that is so satisfying, the gyoza seemed mediocre next to it. As for the place, there was two units for the restaurant and the bf and I reached about 7pm. There were only two of us there and it was nice to be able to enjoy the peace and quiet in the dim lighting of the restaurant. Ice water was served immediately so there was pretty good service. Later, about 7.30pm people starting streaming in and the place started to fill up fast. Within 15mins, about 3 different groups of people came.

The restaurant opens until 2am so you're shopping late in town or clubbing and feeling hungry, here's one place you shouldn't miss!