Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Marutama Ramen

Met up with WM and Hope for another dinner outing tonight. I suggested Marutama Ramen at Central because I really wanted to try it (the 8 Days review had me tempted, and plhu's entries here and here made that temptation irresistable heh).

The interior of the restaurant is nice and cozy, with little four-seat alcoves separated from one another by wooden bars on one side of the restaurant, a line of mixed two-seat and four-seat tables at the other, and a seating area lining the main counter-kitchen area. At each table is arrayed a box of tissue paper, a large flask of chilled drinking water, a shaker of sesame seeds, a bottle of fried garlic shards and toothpicks. We sat down without noticing the menu tucked at the side of the table, and went on talking for a while until the waiter moved towards us and I wondered where the menu was before I saw it beside me. The menu got a bit confusing for WM and Hope, and the waiter wasn't really particularly helpful, leaving me to try and explain about the main ramen types and toppings and why it was that the names of the ramen in the pictures were different from the ones listed on the menu. A bit of a minus for the service heh. All three of us ended up ordering the Marutama Ramen (i.e. original flavour) with added Ajitsuki Tamago (seasoned egg).


Water flask and cups; like the colour combination. I was a bit disappointed because I kind of expected to be served hot Japanese tea in a Japanese restaurant.


The ramen, with that lovely glistening egg sitting in the centre. Doesn't it scream out, "Eat me!"?

8 Days' review mentioned that the quality of ramen deteriorates by the minute, so the prudent thing to do once the ramen arrives is to start eating immediately and not to leave it sitting around in the soup; thus WM and I, whose ramen arrived before Hope's, started eating first. The noodles are springy and pretty full of bite, though I can never shake the thought that the consistency of ramen is remarkably like that of instant noodles, except instant noodles tend to be soggier. The broth was rich but I couldn't really detect any identifiable clues to its ingredients lol; it was coated by a layer of oil which was nice but cloying after a while. The ramen also came with a nice round slice of chashu (Japanese char siew) that started disintegrating when I tried to pick it up with my chopsticks. I found the porky smell of the chashu to be a bit too potent for me, or perhaps it was the spices used to marinate the pork - I didn't really like it.

The highlight was definitely the ajitsuki tamago - I really wonder how they season it such that the sweet saltiness of the Japanese soy sauce completely permeates the egg and even the egg yolk tastes of it. The egg yolk was a most beautiful golden orange, and the consistency looked rather crystalline and shiny, very much unlike the powdery egg yolk of hard-boiled eggs that we are used to. (Didn't take a picture because the egg looked a little ugly after I had chewed up half of it heh) I really really wonder how they make it. Just as well I don't know, I'd make them at home and eat them until I get xanthelasma if I did. I also added some of the fried garlic into my ramen halfway through, and found it a nice addition, though admittedly the strong taste of the garlic masks the original taste of the ramen (and also left me with garlic breath for the rest of the night).


Apparently if you have soup left over in your bowl you can ask for a refill of ramen (kaedama) for 1 dollar. All three of us felt rather unsatisfied after finishing our ramen, so we all asked for kaedama. The picture above is the before state of my soup - look at all that oil!


After kaedama. They bring a metal bowl of the ramen to your table and dump them into your bowl of soup. The noodle serving they add is actually quite large, so rather amusingly we had some problems finishing that, and agreed we should have ordered one or two servings and shared that.

All in all I found Marutama to be disappointing in some aspects but more than meeting my expectations in others; still generally satisfied at the end of the meal. And they were nice enough not to shoo us away even though we kept talking and refusing to leave after paying the bill. Haha. One friend B commented to me that you'll like Marutama if you like ramen, and I agree.

Avaris / 5/15/2007 10:41:00 PM

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