Today we bring you the most popular Ramen shop in Hong Kong. （香港の一番人気ラーメン屋さん）Butao Ramen 豚王ラーメン in LKF, Central has the longest queue and the shortest opening hours, from 11:00am to when the 200 odd bowls of ramen are sold out usually at around 3:00pm. But is it worth the wait? Mum and dad went to find out. Dad got there at 11:30am and joined behind a small queue of people. It didn't look all that daunting. Perhaps the mass media hype and celebrities effect have worn off. {1st piece of media coverage was in end of October 2010 when it just opened.} He could smell the pork bone soup from across the street where he was waiting!!
It was almost their turn at 12:30 pm and Uncle Ricky joined mum and dad to check the place out at the last minute. By then the last people at the end of the queue would probably need to wait 2 hours, extrapolating from the length when dad started queueing. Impressive amount of time given for the Central crowd, especially with the shortened lunch time with the extension of trading hours in the stock market.
Just before they were seated, they handed the order sheet over. Similar to Ichiran 一蘭 (featured
here) in Tokyo, one gets to pick exactly how they would like their bowl of ramen, among of spring onion, chili, the tenderness of the noodle etc. There is one major difference though, Butao gives you an additional 3 toppings on top of the plain pork bone soup (豚王) : squid ink (黒王), Chili (赤王), Cheese and parsley (翠王).
The ramen were served a few minutes after order. And they were delicious. The soup base was full flavour without being too greasey and the noodles were top-notched in terms of tenacity, tenderness. The cheese and parsley toppings went surprising well with the ramen and definitely bring an extra dimention to it all.
If only the store is more spacious, so you can really focus on your bowl of ramen. When you can spare more than 90 minutes for lunch in Central, definitely worth going!!
Address : 11-12, Wo On Lane, Lan Kwai Fong, Central.
