I was away all weekend, at Band Camp, and thus realised that it would be a mite difficult to get myself some ramen there.
Despairing that my lovely ramen blog would go another week without ramen, I contemplated reviewing the instant ramen that I occasionally eat, but decided against it.
But then, fate reached down into this poor ramen-lover's life and decided to steer me towards the most unlikely of chances.
Yesterday, the entire school travelled to the Hamer Hall to practice for a whole-school concert that was held last night. After some rehearsal, we were allowed to head down to Southbank to buy some lunch. And what did I find there but a little shop tucked away into the corner known as "Shoji".
Shoji isn't a ramen restaurant in particular, or even a noodle bar. It sells japanese cuisene, and I began, at first, to despair that I wouldn't find my ramen-y goodness. But after looking a little closer, I saw one little menu item, all alone amongst a sea of udon and unagi-don - it read "Miso Ra Myun"Now, Ra Myun? Even the katakana letters for Ramen, ラーメン spell out "raamen". Ra Myun would be ラ ミュン. But hey, am I japanese? No. Do I speak fluent japanese? No. So I'm not going to critique the spelling of a japanese restaurant.
But I faced a problem. I hadn't thought we'd be coming to Southbank for lunch, and so I felt the uncomfortable bulge of a sandwich in my pocket, and noticed the lack of bulging in my wallet. Fortunately, I had a few freinds to scab off, and I soon found myself clutching two $5 bills in my hand - just enough for a bowl of Miso Ra Myun with Beef. A short wait later, and I found myself sitting down at a small table amongst hundreds of others, hunched over a plastic bowl with some pretty good-smelling ramen and some disposable chopsticks and spoon.
I wasted no time. A friend of mine had ordered the same thing, but after me (it had taken him a little longer to scab the money that he needed), and I was determined to not finish after him. (Perhaps I pride myself on my Ramen-eating, but it might have been that I was just really hungry, which I was). Following my usual procedure, I started with the most tasty-looking toppings, in this case, some teriyaki beef. It was nice, but to be honest, I thought there was a little too much, and I found the interest fading, as it turned into nothing more than tasty beef, and not a Ramen topping. After a few minutes of chewing on some beef, I started on the vegetables. There was broccoli, bok choy, cauliflower, carrot, seaweed, bean shoots and spring onion, and there was a lot of it. To be honest, it had been about 5 minutes before I finally gave up with them and started on the noodles.
And that was where it really went downhill.
The noodles were exactly like the cheap noodles you get at a chinese takeaway when you order Mi Goreng. They were skinny, curly and hard, and they didn't take up any of the flavour of the soup (which I'll say now was a shame, since the soup tasted pretty good. Mmmm...msg...)
But, I was hungry, and I love noodles, so I ate them pretty quickly. I was a little disappointed at the noodly goodness, though.
After finishing off my noodles, I had another shot at eating the veggies, but there were just too many, and I ended up throwing out about a third of the soup and half of the veggies.
Having finished my meal, I went and bought an ice-coffee, and headed back to the Hamer Hall to do some more rehersal. Not particularly satisfied with my "Ra Myun", but at least I was able to find something to post on my blog. :)
So, now for some formalities - the grading side of things.
Information:
- Restaurant Name: Shoji
- Restaurant Location: In Southbank...if you wonder around, you should be able to find it. It's near an Asian Cuisine place, next to a window
- Ramen Ordered: Miso Ramen with Beef
- Price: $9.50 with beef or chicken, $10.50 with seafood
Scoring:
- Atmosphere: 4/10
Well, I suppose you can’t really expect too much by way of atmosphere when there aren’t any tables or an enclosed space for the restaurant to operate in. I did find it rather nice to see friendly staff, and the chefs joking amongst themselves when I failed to be able to pay for my Ramen (until that is I obtained some more money)
- Presentation: 6/10
The Ramen did look pretty good, with a veritable pile of seaweed, beanshoots and beef perched atop the soup. I did think that it looked a little bit too crowded, however – I could barely see the soup or the noodles, two very important factors! Also, the soup was very murky – it’s nice to be able to see what you’re going to be eating before you eat it.
- Toppings: 5/10
It started well, with there being lots of vegetables and teriyaki beef, but before long, that wore off as I chewed my way through easily 15 small pieces of beef, and what must have been 100g of vegetables. I couldn’t actually finish all of them by the end, and had to throw the rest away.
- Noodles: 1/10
Ah yes, the noodles. I was very disappointed to see that they were little more than instant noodles put into a broth and called Ramen. These noodles were definitely not Ramen noodles, and the only way I would have graded them any worse is if there weren’t any noodles in the soup at all.
- Soup Base: 6/10
It certainly was tasty, but to be honest, I couldn’t really taste the miso. In fact, I couldn’t really distinguish any particular taste at all. It was flavoursome, but pretty confusing, much like the soup you’ll get in instant ramen.
- Overall Quality: 4/10
I finished my meal feeling quite dissatisfied, what with the poor noodles and the fact that I couldn’t finish all of the vegetables, along with me being too scared to finish the soup, due to health reasons. It was enjoyable when compared to normal food, but when compared to Ramen, it was very so-so.
- Value: 6/10
For just under $10, it was a very reasonably priced meal, considering the location, and I’d say that I got my money’s worth – an OK feed and something to post on my blog.
- Total: 32/70
Well, not bad, considering that it was, in reality, takeaway food. But to be honest, I'm not entirely sure that you can call what I ate "Ramen". If you're in Southbank and you're umm-ing and aah-ing over what to get, I'd say that this would be worth getting, mainly because it was pretty cheap, and tasted pretty good. Just don't go expecting some awesome Ramen.
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