Ryoji Ramen

Ryoji Ramen

Yesterday I went with my friend Miho to a new ramen house Ryoji Ramen and Izakayaand you can see from the comments on Yelp they’re going through some growing pains.  The ramen here is different from most of the other ramen houses in town.  That is because it is Okinawa Ramen, not Hokkaido ramen.  The biggest different I learned was in the noodles.  Okinawa ramen uses a thin, white noodle while Hokkaido is a thicker yellow noodle. I am sure there  The broth is also labelled as Otoko-Aji or Onna-Aji which my understanding means male or female taste.  In reality it is tonkotsu ramen and shio ramen.

2013-01-27 15.33.16

Anyway, the ramen itself was lovely, but I have some criticisms.  The first is that the egg and the cha-shu were cold.  It would have taken all of 20 seconds to warm up the pork on a frying pan. I am not sure about the egg but it should be easy to drop in a pot of water.  As a result I had to wait for the soup to warm up the meat before I could eat it.

Also, the soup only has a few toppings.  Cha-shu, egg, sprouts, chopped green onions… I want more toppings!  I want a flavour medley in my mouth. I want nori, I want wood ears and pickles and I want sesame seeds. I have no idea why no one has sesame seeds but this is really getting me down.  Also, one of the ramen on the menu is ramen with garlic oil.  I wish they just put the garlic oil on the table and let me add itself. When I was in Japan many of the toppings are there on the table for you to add yourself. Perhaps it is not the Okinawa way.

There was also a lack of appetizers on the lunch menu.  There was nothing there that piqued my interest.  Given my propensity for enjoying food, it should have been pretty easy to put something on there for me. There was several items on the dinner menu, which they were not serving at the time, which did look like something I would like.

Another complaint I have is the size of the soup.  It is small!  I was still hungry afterwards.  For 13 dollars I want to feel satisfied. There was still a lot of room in that bowl, and it wouldn’t hurt to add more noodles. You cannot even see the noodles in my photo, that’s how small the portion is.

But now the positive. The soup is de-lic-ious!  With the tonkotsu, the fat floating in the soup was perfect flavour and the noodles were fantastic – cooked to perfection. The slender noodle help the soup cling to it and they are easier to maneuver onto the spoon.  The cha-shu while cold, was very soft and melted in your mouth.  Once it warmed up the  flavour of it was excellent as well.  Miho thought the soup was salty, but I enjoyed it all the same.

The service was good, and the decor was pleasant so all in all it was a nice lunch.  It apparently becomes more of a bar in the evenings, but I would recommend you go for the soup.

No votes yet.
Please wait...

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *