Menya

Well, after a painfully long absence (why is Sunday always so busy?), I decided that it had been far too long since I had tasted non-instant ramen. School holidays have begun, so we were no longer bound by the weekend. This also meant that we didn't have to worry about the shops that were closed on Sundays.
The last time we were in Swanston Street, we set our sights on Menya. It looked like a good little place, tucked away in an alleyway leading into Melbourne Central, but it was tremendously busy at the time, so we decided to come next time. 'Next time' was yesterday. Determined, we hopped on the train and headed towards Menya. It was quite early still, but already the place was filled with hungry people morphing into non-hungry people. Interestingly, I only saw Ramen dishes and Rice dishes for sale. No soba, udon or side-dishes, just the happiness of ramen and rice. Already encouraged at the range of ramen Menya had to offer (most places have five at the most, there must have been at least ten different types of ramen), I was interested to note that the dishes were named after their toppings, and not their soup. Being unadventurous, I went with the good ol' Pork ramen, while my sister went for gyoza ramen, which was pretty much the house soup with dumplings.
A short wait later, and we found ourselves sitting in front of two rather tasty looking bowls of ramen. Wasting no time, I attacked my ramen, starting with the large chunks of pork that were floating on top of the soup. They were tasty, and tender enough for me to break apart with my chopsticks. There was some menma too, which I normally don't care for. I tried it anyway, and was surprised to find it rather tasty. Overall, I was feeling rather good about this ramen when I started on the noodles. There wasn't a huge amount of them, but it was certainly sufficient. They were quite good, with a lot of flavour, and an adequate texture. I finished them rather quickly, and started on my soup. My plan was to only drink a few spoonfuls, so I could get a good idea of the taste. It needed some soy-sauce, but after I added that, I couldn't really help but drink more than half of it! It was a pay-in-advance sort of thing, so once we were finished, someone came and took our bowls away (impressively quickly, I might add, given how busy it was), and we left.
But the fun didn't stop there. Next door was a place called "Harajuku". Harajuku is an area around a station in Tokyo of the same name. It's quite an awesome place, filled with cosplayers. Anyway, this was a crepe store. Not french crepes, but Japanese crepes. If you've never had one, it's a humungous, thin crepe, folded into a cone shape and filled with all sorts of goodies. My sister's had nutella and almonds, and mine (which I dubbed the 'suicide crepe') had strawberries, vanilla ice-cream, vanilla custard, and cream. People tend to think I don't have much of a sweet tooth, since I don't particularly like chocolate, but this sure proved them wrong!
Anyway, if you happen to be in Melbourne Central, head over to Harajuku and get yourself some crepe!

But onto the cold, objective side of things...

Information:

• Restaurant Name: Menya
  
• Restaurant Location: One of the little laneways leading out of Melbourne Central and onto Swanston St
  
• Ramen Ordered: Pork Ramen
  
• Price: About $8.50
  

Scoring:

• Atmosphere: 9/10

Awesome. A tiny little store in an alleyway. The only way it could be closer to Japanese ramen places would be if everything was in japanese, and you had to figure it out for yourself!

• Presentation: 9/10

Simple, but lovely. I thought the bowl looked balanced as a whole, and the entire picture was one of authenticity. The pork looked a little...meaty. But I guess that's sort of the point.

• Toppings: 9/10

The pork was some of the best pork I have ever eaten, ramen or no, and the menma was good enough for even me to eat it all. Did I mention that I love spring onions?
I did think that they used a little too much of the actual spring onion though. It gets a little tough and flavourless as you venture further and further away from the white root part.

• Noodles: 7/10

A good amount, nice flavour and adequate texture. Nothing outstanding though. These were probably the weakpoint of the entire bowl.

• Soup Base: 8/10

Very tasty to begin with. After I added some soy-sauce, though, it became supremely excellent. If only they'd added it to begin with...

• Overall Quality: 8/10

Despite its weak spots, I found this a very enjoyable bowl of ramen. After I was finished, I had a nice taste in my mouth, and a hole in my stomach had been filled. I left feeling happily satisfied.

• Value: 9/10

Very nice ramen, and for a very nice price. Easily worth $8.50.

• Total: 59/70

I have no major quips about Menya. The place itself is great, and the ramen is delicious. Probably the best bowl of ramen I've had since I was in Shin-Yokohama. Easily worth traveling across town for. And there were crepes next door! If you're in the city, I strongly recommend that you head over to Melbourne Central and seek out Menya.

PS: There was a long wall of stylised graffiti opposite Menya, which is very similar to the wall done by CAT in 'The World Ends With You', an excellent game by Square Enix, the makers of Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy. Just thought I'd add that, since it was a little extra thing that made me happy.

Itami Japanese Cuisine

Well, yesterday was Sunday, but I couldn't go out and get myself some of the tastiest noodles in the world, because it was my sister's birthday. What was I to do?
It's at this point that time travel comes in handy. Also known as forethought. Two days earlier (I'm definitely the organised one), I was taken to Southland Shopping Center, in Cheltenham.
Now, I go to Southland pretty often, considering I don't leave the house much. I suppose you could consider it the place that I go with my friends, if we're not inside playing Halo 3. Anyway, in the culinary center of the place, there is this little Japanese place, called "Itami Japanese Cuisine". I go there probably two times in five that I'm there, and I always get the same thing - Tonkatsu Ramen. Why? Because it's pretty good. Nothing like what I had in Japan, but it was the absolute first real Ramen that I ever had, so I have quite a bit of connection to the place.
Aaanyway, it was Friday night, and southland was abuzz with late-night shoppers. My parents went to do some shopping, leaving my sister and I to grab a bite to eat. It was then that the then-present-Lachlan decided that it might be nice to do future-Lachlan a favour and grade the good ol' Itami Ramen, so that there was something to put on the blog next week. Whipping out my notepad and pen (yes, I carry around a notebook and pen. Is there something wrong with that?), I quickly sketched up a table of scores, and prepared to jot down a few comments. Up until then, I'd happily wolfed down my Ramen without much thought into the objective quality of it. That day was different.
So I went up to get my Ramen, and as usual, asked for my Tonkatsu Ramen. Something that's always slightly frustrated me about Itami is the fact that if you ask for Tonkatsu Ramen, they'll confirm that you chose the right thing by asking "Number 9, yes?". It's slightly annoying, because it sort of ruins the whole "Japanese restaurant" thing. At least have a little menu on the counter or something and point to what the customer asks for...at least that way you can keep things in Japanese if they want to. =/
Anyway, five minutes later, I was heading over to a table with a tray holding two steaming-hot bowls of Tonkatsu Ramen. Oddly, this time the bowls were clear...they were usually white. It looks better in white, I think, but since they're in a busy shopping center, I suppose they don't really have much choice in terms of the cutlery.
Digging into the Tonkatsu, which was wet, but still crispy, hot and tasty, I was reminded just why I keep coming back. Unfortunately, after the Tonkatsu, there really isn't much left to eat (the snow-peas go down fast), except the bean shoots and seaweed, which you pretty much eat with the noodles. Not that I'm upset about that, the noodles are quite nice, and pretty plentiful. The soup is very salty, but carries the subtle flavour of Tonkatsu. It is, however, quite watery and weak, and lacks a certain substance that would make it truly great.

But that's me ranting about my Ramen, here are some more concrete figures...

Information:

• Restaurant Name: Itami Japanese Cuisine
  
• Restaurant Location: Southland Shopping Center food-court, Cheltenham
  
• Ramen Ordered: Tonkatsu Ramen
  
• Price: $8.50
  

Scoring:

• Atmosphere: 4/10

In reality, it would be tricky for them to get much in the location that they are in - they can't have any music, or decorate the walls, because it's too noisy and big, and the walls don't belong to them. It would have been nice if there was a little more authenticity in the way they talked about the food though. I came for Ramen, #9.

• Presentation: 6/10

The bowl is too crowded, and a lack of colour coupled with a slightly disconcerting brown colour bring it down further. The clear bowl certainly didn't help, also. Some bright vegetables, like carrot or broccoli would be good, as well as either a wider bowl or less Tonkatsu. In reality, I'd rather it look cramped than give up some of that Tonkatsu-y goodness.

• Toppings: 8/10

Well, the centerpiece, the Tonkatsu, is awesome, but other than that, there's a general lack of toppings. The snow-peas help, but they were fleeting at best. There could be a few less bean shoots, but other than that, it's all pretty solid in the Toppings area.

• Noodles: 8/10

Numerous and tasty. The texture is pretty good, and they have their own flavour, while still reflecting the taste of the soup. They lack a little something that I thought the ones that I had in Tokyo possessed, however.

• Soup Base: 8/10

It tastes good, and I'm not afraid that I'll die from the MSG if I drink a little of it. Could use some more sustenance though, as it seems a little bit thin.

• Overall Quality: 8/10

I like it. That's pretty much the whole story. I come back to Itami because I like the Ramen. It could certainly be better, but when you look at the rest of the food court, while there certainly is lots of good food to choose from, this Ramen is probably my favorite thing.

• Value: 8/10

For $10 with a coke, it's definitely more expensive than say a burger at McDonald's, or some KFC, but for what you get, I'd definitely say it's worth it. It was $7.50 - a dollar cheaper, until last year, and that was when it was really worth it. Sigh...good times.

• Total: 50/70

Far from the Perfect Ramen, I do very much enjoy Itami Japanese Cuisine, they have a lot of awesome-looking things there...in fact, next time, I might try the Yakisoba. But as for the Ramen, it's tasty, the noodles, soup-base and toppings are all very tasty, and if you're shopping or watching a movie (or attending the Nintendo DS Connection Tour), then there certainly isn't a better place to go for lunch. If you're in Southland, or you see an Itami on the street, I'd check it out.

Tobu Sushi

Two days ago, my sister and I set out upon a journey once again to the city in search of the perfect Ramen. The target for today? Well, we didn't know exactly, but we did know that there were Ramen merchants a'plenty on Swanston Street, so we guessed we'd try there. Melbourne Central Station is right on Swanstron St, so catching a train wouldn't be too hard...or so we thought.
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.

Shoji Ramen

Well, here's the first post, along with the first ramen restaurant I have been to since the launch of this site. This particular visit came a little bit unexpected, to be honest.
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.

Grading Ramen

So, to business. After heading to a few locations around Melbourne, we decided to create a formal, objective grading system, so that we could have a more concrete comparison of all of the ramen that we would be eating. The grading system has seven categories. They are:

• Atmosphere - This involves the general "vibe" of the restaurant, as well as service, cleanliness, that sort of thing. The restaurant doesn't have to necessarily be clean and sophisticated, it can be small and grubby, but if it "feels" nice, then it has atmosphere. The atmosphere should be judged after leaving the restaurant, as it is only then that the part of the ramen experience that involves the restaurant is truly over.
  
• Presentation - What the ramen looks like. Does it look like some higher being has turned into a bowl of noodly goodness, or does it look like someone has watered down some sludge they found in a gutter, and chucked some noodles in it. The Presentation should be judged before eating the ramen, as after you dig in, it could get messy!
• Toppings - What toppings are on the ramen? Are there enough of them? Is there too much? Do they taste good, and are they substantial enough. Also, are they fitting to the ramen? Putting some teriyaki chicken in a bowl of tonkatsu ramen is just madness. This should be graded After the entire bowl of ramen has been mercilessly devoured.
• Noodles - Noodles should be plentiful, hot and have a nice texture. They shouldn't be too soft, or too hard. Something like Al Denté pasta is ideal. This should be graded after all of the noodles have disappeared mysteriously.
• Soup - This is basically the flavour of the soup. Does it taste good, and does it taste right? A soup might taste good, but if it tastes like nothing but shouyu, and it's supposed to be miso, then that won't do. This should be graded either at some point during the drinking of the soup, or after it is all gone.
• Overall Quality - Putting it simply, how was the ramen overall? There might have been a few discrepancies here and there, but looking back on it, you might decide that it was pretty good after all. This is pretty much putting a numerical value on how much you would say you enjoyed the ramen. This should be graded after the ramen has been eaten, and you are basking in the afterglow.
• Value - This isn't how much it cost, but what you got for your money. The ramen might have cost $50, but if it was the best ramen ever, you mightn't look too unfavourably upon its price. The ideal situation is perfect ramen for a cheap price, and the flipside of that is expensive, poor ramen.

Each of these seven categories is given a score out of 10, adding up to a total of 70. This is the score given to that Ramen restaurant, and is something I'm going to call the RWQ (Ramen Win Quotient).

So there you have it. I'll be putting all of the ramen restaurants into here, writing a short article about each one. I'll see about making a table of all of the ramen restaurants we go to, and their respective scores. If anyone happens to visit a ramen restaurant that they feel needs to be here, then grade it, send me your article, and I'll put it up here. Who knows, this could end up being a database for all Australian ramen restaurants!

So, that's it for now...

Ja ne~

What is Ramen?

Now that I think about it, some of you might not know what Ramen actually is. Let me fill you in, you poor, deprived soul.

Ramen (ラーメン or 拉麺, rāmen, IPA: [ˈɺaːmeɴ], is a Japanese noodle dish that originated in China. It tends to be served in a meat-based broth, and uses toppings such as sliced pork (チャーシュー, chāshū), dried seaweed (海苔, nori), kamaboko, green onions, and even corn. Almost every locality or prefecture in Japan has its own variation of ramen, from the tonkotsu ramen of Kyūshū to the miso ramen of Hokkaidō.

So there's your dictionary definition. For a more down-to-earth idea of what Ramen is, I'll put that into my own words.
Ramen is indeed a noodledish, I'm not to sure about where it originally comes from, but it would seem that China is indeed the place. If you've seen much anime, you'd know what ramen is, especially if you've seen Naruto. Ramen is, in my opinion, a dish that can be summarised by its three constituents: The Noodles, The Soup and The Toppings. The thing that tends to vary the most, and is thus in my opinion the most important thing in regards to taste is the soup. You can have pretty much as many types of Soup as you can think of, but the main ones are Shio (Salt), Tonkotsu (Pork-Bone), Shouyu (Soy-Sauce) and Miso (umm...Miso).
The most important thing about ramen in comparison to other foods, in my opinion, is the fact that ramen has...a certain culture about it. Whether going into a massive ramen chain store in the Melbourne CBD, or ducking into a tiny corner shop in the backstreets of akihabara, all good ramen places have a certain...something that I have never found anywhere else.

Beginnings...

Heya~

I am a relatively normal 16 year old student. I study (relatively) hard, so that I can achieve the expected dream of getting into a university course. Once in a blue-moon, I feebly attempt to get myself a job, so that I can afford to buy things to keep myself materially happy. I watch some TV, I play piano, and pretty much what most people do. The unusual things about me could probably be summarised by the fact that I am quite the otaku, having filled up a small bookshelf in my room with Manga and Anime, as well as spending most of my time playing Kingdom Hearts and Type/Moon's visual novels. I listen to music quite obsessively, and I tend not to bother following the rules of society - except when it allows me to avoid trouble. Other than those few things, I am your completely normal, run-of-the-mill teenager.

Most teenagers might spend their weekends going out with their friends, checking out the movies, going to parties, and some teenagers might just spend it getting drunk and doing drugs, I spend my weekends in a fundamentally different manner. I wake up early, go for a short run, cook myself some miscellaneous breakfast, and start (at the moment) playing Tsukihime. That's for Saturday. Sunday is different. Sunday involves me starting the day in mostly the same way, but after breakfast and a little Tsukihime, my sister and I prepare to go out into the world in our search for one thing: The perfect ramen that Melbourne has to offer.

We have both been to Tokyo, and had ramen a few times while we were there, so we sort of know what we're up against. We'd had ramen in Melbourne a few times before, but we found it quite difficult to find in our area. By the time we'd gotten ourselves to Tokyo, we'd only ever had proper ramen once before! After tasting the ramen in Tokyo, we were determined to find some really good ramen in Melbourne. That was about a year ago.

After almost 12 months of deliberating and procrastination, we decided to actually do something. Springing up from our proverbial lounge-chairs (mine was Fate/Stay Night), we decided that every Sunday for lunch, we would have ramen at a different restaurant, until we'd gone everywhere our legs and public transport could take us. That was about a month ago.

After going out to a few locations and tasting a little of what Melbourne had to offer ramen-wise, I decided to set up this blog...perhaps others can benefit from our ventures. I'm not sure just how many people this blog will reach, but I can hope that it will do some good, helping fellow Melbournians to enjoy the taste and culture that is ramen.

A note on the name of this blog, "Shouri no Ramen", it means "Ramen of Win". English that doesn't really make much sense unless you've spent some time on online forums and the like. I suppose you could translate it as "Ramen that induces the feeling that you've won something when you get it", simply abbreviated as Shouri no Ramen (or SnR, as I'm thinking of referring to it as).