My sister had decided that leaving at 11:00 would be good, so we'd get there nice and early - about 11:45. I thought 11:30 would be a better time to leave, and since I'm more adamant, we left the house at 11:30.
A short walk later, we arrived at the station, we were informed that there'd been some sort of problem at the station next to ours, and thus there were no trains running today (at least, on that station, and two others. Which meant that if we got driven down to a station three stops down, we could get to the city that way). So that was a slight hitch in our plans. Thankfully, we have parents to leech off, and one of them was willing to drive us over to a functioning station.
But of course, the attendant at our station was completely and totally wrong about the trains - we couldn't catch a train on that line at all. An exhasperated parent was, however, willing to drive us over to another line, and we were on our way - about 45 minutes late.
We arrived at Melbourne Central Station at about 1:00, and by then we were both rather hungry, to say the least. We wandered around for about 20 minutes, and after being unable to find a place that we hadn't already been to, we decided to go to a place we'd been to before (I hadn't graded it properly, so I could put it in my blog that way, so overall not a complete loss, although it did mean that we wouldn't be able to find any new, awesome ramen). Just as we turned to walk back to our destination, I spied, in a Sushi shop, a sign saying "Tonkotsu Ramen - $8.50". Stopping in my tracks, I ignored the troubled look my sister was giving me and pointed at the sign. It was a small shop and didn't look like it had too big a kitchen (maybe 2m squared), but I thought we should give it a shot anyway - after all, one of the places we went to in Tokyo was really small, and that ramen was pretty good!
Walking inside, we were greeted, and my sister ordered some vegetarian ramen. After taking her order, the waitress walked off to tell the chef...leaving me standing there for some five minutes before she realised that I wanted to eat something too! But after we'd both ordered and had our ramen sitting in front of us, everything was OK.The Ramen looked pretty good, with a healthy mix of not-too-many-vegetables, and some pretty good looking tonkatsu perched atop a veritable mound of noodles. I was feeling generally pretty hopeful...until I started eating.
Don't get me wrong, it was good, but it definitely wasn't as good as it looked. I started with the Tonkatsu, and it was really soggy. Rather than being crispy and awesome, all of the breadcrumbs were practically sliding off into my soup, and it didn't taste of all that much. The carrots were pretty undercooked, meaning that all they tasted like was carrot, and they were too hard. Aside from that, the vegetables were pretty good. Then I moved onto the noodles.
That was where I got pretty upset. They were noodles definitely equaling those that I had in Tokyo, with one fatal difference - they were really undercooked. This meant that they were too soft and slimy, and tasted of little more than raw noodle...not a particularly pleasant taste. They were good, but it was upsetting to know that they could have been so much better. Once they had mysteriously vanished, I tried a few spoonfuls of the soup, which I found was pretty much tasteless, and the MSG made it taste pretty much like a salty, sour flavour-sachet in liquid form.
Despite all of the little things wrong with it, however, it was pretty enjoyable overall, and I'd say worth the money.
Now, let's talk facts and numbers.
Information:
- Restaurant Name: Tobu Sushi
- Restaurant Location: 55 Swanston Street, Melbourne. It's on a corner, so if you look around for a bit, you'll find it.
- Ramen Ordered: Tonkatsu Ramen
- Price: $8.50
Scoring:
- Atmosphere: 6/10
I rather liked it. It's a very small shop, and that gave it a small element of intimacy. It would have been nicer if it wasn't so open to the street though, and the kitchen was a little too small for me to really appreciate what was going on. Also, they had an automatic sushi-maker, which, while nifty to watch, isn't very atmospheric...
- Presentation: 7/10
It looked rather nice actually. You can't really see in this picture, since I'd eaten the tonkatsu and the carrot before I'd realised that I'd forgotten to take a photo...so the colour's all gone (I was hungry, OK?), but there wasn't too much stuff in it, and the blend of ingredients was nice and simple. The noodles sort of floated a little bit too, allowing me to see them in all their glory.
- Toppings: 3/10
Pretty disappointing. The only thing that wasn't a failure was the broccolli, and I don't really like it all that much. The tonkatsu was soggy and tasteless, and the carrot was undercooked.
- Noodles: 7/10
The promise of excellent noodles hung in the air as I ate these beauties. They were thick, actually tasted like ramen and had a nice texture....or at least they would have if they were cooked properly. There were heaps of them though, which is always a big plus.
- Soup Base: 5/10
Rather basic. The lack of flavour was attempting to redeem itself through the use of some sort of flavour enhancer...all it did was make it taste sort of funky. I didn't finish the soup for fear of my health.
- Overall Quality: 7/10
Despite it's many flaws, I did rather enjoy this ramen. It tasted pretty good overall, and I was happily full afterwards. There was a lot of room for improvement, but in the scope of things, I'd say that it was pretty good.
- Value: 8/10
For $8.50, I could have bought a subway, maybe a souvlaki, some sort of middle-tier takeaway, which means that this ramen was pretty cheap! And for what it was, I'd say it was very much worth what I payed.
- Total: 43/70
Overall, I did enjoy my meal, and although I probably wouldn't come back (after all, it's a sushi store that also makes ramen. I wasn't really expecting the grand master of ramen dishes), I would say that it's worth trying at least once. I might head over there sometime for some sushi, you never know!
If you're walking around Swanston Street, and you think you've tried all the ramen that that wonderful place has to offer, the odds are you haven't been here. I recommend that you give it a shot.
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