Ramen - Tamashii Ramen Hong Kong 魂

Mum and dad are eating out a lot these days because JieJie J is on her 3-week home leave. So we get to write a lot more. So lets take a look at Tamashii 魂.

Mum and dad love their noodles and would even dare to boast they have tried more noodles in more corners of the world than most. One of the highlights for their many trips to Japan was to try out ramen and udon in those places. Tamashii's bowl of ramen must rank amongst the top of anything they have had. The shop's ambience is perhaps the most nostalgically Japanese in Hong Kong. If one is forced to pick between Butao 豚王 and Tamashii, the latter is their current top pick. Before we carry on with their praises for the place, you should know what Tamashii is NOT about:

Big portion - smaller than Butao and probably small than Ippudo

Super rich broth - lighter than Butao, similar to Ippudo. But the soup broth imparts a subtler flavor then either.

Queue at 11:30am, half-hour before opening.

A place to chat over a bowl of ramen - while nobody drives you away, but you feel bad occupying the seat while all the poor souls queueing outside breathing exhaust fumes from the constantly passing traffic going up Canal Street Flyover. Go to Ippudo for a more hospitable place to wait in line.

Feeling healthy - even though all the ramen come with small bits of veg like, sugar snaps, bamboo shoots  and the pork broth is lighter; the one piece of char siu will send your cholesterol reading through the roof. The worst thing is after the first piece melted in your mouth, you will be itching for a second helping to put even more load onto your pumping heart. Not sure if this is the feeling that the name of the shop is referring to.

Tai Keku 太極 - with black squid sauce

Tamashii 魂 

Hidama 火魂

Address - 18C Sharp Street West, Causeway Bay (side street behind South Pacific Hotel)

Feel free to check out where else we have written about eating noodles and ramen in Hong Kong and elsewhere in the world. tag - noodles

You might like to read this "Lifestyle" article in the Standard with more background. You get greeted by the broad bright smile from Lily Chen, the owner, when you enter the venue.
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=36&art_id=119783&sid=35447828&con_type=3&d_str=20120217


Check this out to see what "tamashii 魂" mean in Japanese. 
http://japanese.about.com/od/wordoftheday/p/Word-Of-The-Day-Tamashii.htm

Ippudo HK - 一風堂 香港

Some people like queuing up to try new places. The longer the queue, the better it must be. After all, 50,000 Frenchmen can't be wrong. Mum and dad are not huge fans for queuing up for food, but often end up doing so. Last night was another such occasion.

Ippudo finally comes to Hong Kong, after opening oversea branches in New York and Singapore. Officially it was opened on 18 July, less than 3 weeks ago. So perhaps the word hasn't really spread and they could avoid the queue. Truth is too many people knew already!!

Having arrived just before 6:30pm, they were 474 and it was number 380 turn to be seated. It wasn't after 8:30pm when they were seated. Total waiting time 140 minutes. At that point, the shop had stopped giving out new numbers and the tally was 740!! With last order at 10:15pm, the maths just didn't add up.

But was it worth the wait?

The pork bone broth was as good as the one in they had in the original main shop in Fukuoka, Japan and the tenacity of the noodles was similar as well. The pork slices somehow weren't as tasty. Tough to pinpoint what's the difference, since it's never an A-B comparison with these things. Some might say the broth was too greasy, but then that's the Ippudo style. Dad till can't forget the stomach upset after gulping down the last drop of Ippudo's broth in Osaka 8 years ago.

一風堂 香港 － 辣肉味噌

If you like the feel of a lighter broth, go for the Karaka (Spicy) ramen. Never had that in Japan, but its taste was reminiscence of the Chinese dan-dan noodles 擔擔麵.

一風堂 香港 － 白丸

一風堂 香港 － 赤丸

The Hong Kong shop also makes a distinction between the pork slices they served in the Shiromaru (白丸 original pork bone broth) and the Akamaru  (赤丸 broth with red miso paste). The former is served with leaner "char siu" and the latter is served with fattier "pork loin".

一風堂 香港 － 叉燒角包

Another item you wouldn't have seen in the original Ippudo Japan menu, it's the Char-siu bun (叉燒角包). It was created as Hirata Bun in the Ippudo New York menu in 2008 and offered in selected outlets in Ippudo Japan in 2009 as a reverse import (逆輸入). ref ippudo official website

Momofuku Pork Bun taken in New York 2009

As you can see it looks remarkably similar to the most famous pork bun in New York, the Momofuku pork bun. And if you read David Chang's Momofuku cookbook, you see that the inspiration of the bun most probably came from the kitchen in Grand Hyatt Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong. It's really gone the full circle!! Also 角包 is not a description of the shape of the bun, but instead from Japanese 角煮 (kakuni which means stew made with cubed pieces of meat). This bun wasn't very tasty and definitely not as good as those in Momofuku.

Overall, Ippudo Hong Kong gives you the best and most spacious environment to enjoy your bowl of ramen. Even the waiting area is spacious and well ventiliated. Its quality is probably among the best in Hong Kong and the prices are very reasonable (HK$68 for the basic ramen before 10% service charge). You can avoid the queue by going there early, like 11am when it opens. Go before the crowd gets even larger!!

Ippudo, Shop 210, 2/F, Silvercord, 30 Canton Rd., Tsim Sha Tsui, 2957 8893; www.ippudo.com.hk. Daily 11:30 - 23:00
http://www.facebook.com/ippudohongkong?sk=info

http://buddyscottiecadet.blogspot.com/2011/06/kyushu-trip-ramen.html
see link for ippudo fukuoka and other ramen in kyushu

http://buddyscottiecadet.blogspot.com/2009/12/momofuku.html
see link on momofuku NYC


Some of the other ramen places that we wrote about. Ramen

Kyushu Trip - Ramen

Hand-made gyoza - juicy inside with a crunchy skin. Just one dish? More please!

The whole night this guy kept wrapping these delicious gyoza at the yatai in Fukuoka.

Ichiran in Tenjin, Fukuoka. The ramen was a bit of a disappointment.

Fukusuke chicken Ramen in Yufuin

The owner used a torch fire to grill slices of chicken on a hot pan. You add the rice to make porridge after you finish the noodles. Would love to try one of those.

こだいこ Kodaiko Ramen in Kumamoto, the pork slices were especially smooth and really melt in your mouth.

Hidechan Ramen in Ramen Stadium, Canal City, Fukuoka. The pork was tasty but the noodle wasn't good.

Ikkoucha - Black garlic ramen added an extra dimension to the pork bone broth.

Ikkoucha - the broth was full flavor but not greasy and the noodles had great texture.

Ikkoucha - a recommendation from the lady at Toyota rent-a-car. Everyone have their own favorites.

Ippudo (一風堂) - one of Fukuoka most famous ramen chain

Ippudo (一風堂) - probably the best overall, broth, pork slices and noodles combined into an unforgettable experience

Ippudo (一風堂) - another satisfied customer coming out of the main original shop

If you like rick, milky, pork bone broth (tonkotsu) ramen, you would love Kyushu, especially Fukuoka because this is the birth place of the Hakata style ramen. There are so many ramen shops and they could only try a few.

Butao Ramen 豚王ラーメン

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.

Ramen House - Daruma 達磨らめん

Dad is a big Japanese ramen fan. But he and mum often find shops operated out of Hong Kong lacked the real gist of Japanese ramen, ie a bowl of soup oozing aroma of pork bones and pieces of charshu which literally melt in your mouth. Mum went to Wakayama in IFC and Sapporo Ramen in Exchange Square recently, they were disappointing and acceptable respectively.

One fine evening, they decided to give the new ramen shop in Tai Hang a try. Since it's located in the neighborhood of Sushi Shin, mum's favorite Sushi place, they witnessed the birth of the shop!!

ADDRESS

Shop E, G/F, Ming Sun Building, 92, Tung Lo Wan Road, Tai Hang, HK
大杭銅鑼灣道92號E地下

Call for reservation - 2565 6600

After a brief wait outside, they were seated along one of the benches. The shop space is small, but the seats are spacious enough. The lighting and the color scheme are similar to some small shops in Tokyo. They ordered two Daruma special ramen to share with grand-dad and a few other snacks. The special ramen has a dollop of Mentaiko 明太子. After the first mouthful of soup oozing aroma of pork bones, the noodles were springy and the charshu really melted in their mouth.

The shop manager, Annie was sitting behind the counter and made a good effort to tell mum why Daruma's ramen is special. The tonkotsu soup is cooked daily in the morning once and once in the afternoon. They stop serving as soon as the soup base runs out. The noodles are specially ordered from Japan and the pork is from Holland. The resulting product is perhaps the best that they have tried in Hong Kong and comparable to some of the better ones in Japan. For HK$58 for the most basic bowl of ramen and no 10% service charge, the margin must be razor thin. Some things got to give eventually, either the price needs to go up or the quality deteriorates. So you should go now before either things happen. We are sure mum and dad will go again and take some pictures!!

Nabekyuu 奈辺久 in Lake Akan 阿寒湖

Part of the fun in doing fly-drive holiday without too much planning is finding places to eat. Mum likes to venture into different shops and start asking the shop assistants what their local favorites are. Other than their trip to San Fransisco which they had booked many restaurants prior to leaving Hong Kong, mostly they just relied on locals' word of mouth. That was how they ended up eating in Nabekyuu 奈辺久 for lunch. Dad was particularly impressed by its hot soba with shrimp tempura.

Dinner at Asahikawa 旭川

蜂屋のラメン

A few good noodles

Today, the free Chinese newspaper am730 ran a double-page spread special on the Japanese noodle culture with 2 articles: one written by a Chinese and one written by a Japanese who is fluent in Chinese. The special has some interesting photos and the 2 articles are both well written. And it provides the perfect opportunity for us to talk about a few noodle places in Hong Kong.

Inaniwa Udon Nabe

Situated at one of the quieter corners in the Elements shopping mall in Tsim Sha Tsui, the deceptively small shop front opened up to a spacious restaurant with high ceiling. Well past lunch time during a Saturday, most of the tables were still occupied. Despite the restaurant being quite full, it didn't feel crowded, perhaps helped by the high ceiling and the way tables were spaced out. The menu was simple: a few hot dish selections, udon accompanied by separate bowls of different sauces or soup (Tsuke udon つけうどん) and Japanese hotpot (nabe 鍋).

If you want to know more about tsuke udon, especially in relation to Inaniwa udon nabe, there is a fairly detailed discourse in openrice.com with the link as attached here. But as explained in the am730 article today, "tsuke" noodle was first developed for "ramen" in Tokyo in 1955 and it is still mainly a way reserved for serving "ramen". Wikipedia article in Japanese here.

Suffice to say, this shop made a damn good bowl of Japanese udon. But then if you follow the cooking instructions of the udon you get from Japanese stores here, you should get a decent shot of making a good bowl of cold udon as well. Guess the harder part is to get the sauce or the soup right.

The surprise was actually the sausage which came twirling inside a sizzling hot plate. Well worth going just for that. Delicious!!

Shop 2002, 2/F, Elements, 1 Austin Road West, Tsim Sha Tsui
尖沙 咀柯士甸道西1號圓方(Elements)2樓2002號舖

 一碗麵

HKD150 for a bowl of noodles. This was the most expensive bowl of beef noodles that dad has ever eaten. Situated at the crossing between Star Street and St Francis Street, an open-kitchen style interior with simple wooden tables and benches, this shop offered a very limited menu: noodles with 3 choices of soup (all HKD150) a few snacks and desserts. If it was a blind tasting, dad would never have guessed the price. In Hong Kong, there is enough clientele who would equate a high price to delicious food for this shop to carry on thriving.
G/F, St Francis Street 33, Wanchai.  Tel: 22940426

鼎泰豐 Ding Tai Fung

While super famous for its soup-filled xiao long bao 小籠包, its chicken soup noodle is well worth trying. Somehow the chicken soup tastes the same no matter where in the world you order. The only problem is waiting for a table.

麥兆記 Mak Siu Kee Wonton Noodle
Perhaps the best traditional thin egg noodle in Hong Kong. You can feel the "bounce" on the noodles. But the wonton 雲吞 here are not as good, but the beef tendon and brisket in chu hua sauce is very tasty. Photos to follow, if we get them.
Electric Road 74B, Tin Hau.

香港鏡記粉麵廠
If you fancy making your own wonton noodle, you can get fresh wonton skin and fresh egg noodles here. Photos and recipes to follow.
G/F, Tai Wo St 4, Wanchai.

Momofuku

So what about the restaurants? Why's there no mention of any Michelin stars?
Mum was busy working during this trip in New York and dad survived on eating 2 meals a day. With the American serving sizes, he could probably do with 1.5 meals a day.

The exceptions were Momofuku and Daniel.

Momofuku is a chain of restaurants opened by the Korean Chef, David Chang. He started with Momofuku Noodle Bar in 2003 (Momofuku is probably a tribute to Momofuku Ando, the father of instant noodles). Upon its success, he opened Momofuku Ssäm Bar, Momofuku Ko and the Milk Bar afterward. And the latest restaurant due to open was Ma Peche inside the Chambers Hotel in 56th Street near 5th Avenue. You can read about it all in the wikipedia entry above.

Mum ate the Ma Peche menu 3 times during her trip and dad ate once. Yes, we did say, the restaurant wasn't opened yet. But they started serving the Ma Peche menu in the lounge of the Chambers Hotel before the restaurant was ready.

On Saturday, before they took off for Germany, they went for a trip exploring all the Momofuku shops before making a short visit to Soho.

Momofuku Ssäm Bar is a causal diner serving a mix of everything. Its latest claim of fame is perhaps being the first and only restaurant to make the Perrier Top 50 restaurants that takes no reservations. It ranks 31st. This is quite an accolade when you consider how many famous chefs there are in the world.

As Dad wanted to try the noodles with ginger and scallion, they went to the Momofuku Noodle Bar after having their starters in the Ssäm Bar. The place was not very well sign-posted and instead of entering the Noodle Bar when they saw the Momofuku sign, they went into Momofuku Ko, which was a tiny place and very quiet with only a few customers in there. Momofuku Ko, takes reservations online 6 days in advance and serve 2 fried chickens. And this is a Michelin 2-star restaurant. They were kindly told that the Noodle Bar was just next door and the restaurant was full.

When they entered the Noodle Bar, it was a completely different ambience. The whole place was buzzing with people and there was a 15-20 minute wait for seats at the bar. They ordered a sashimi and the noodle with ginger and scallion. The sashimi was fresh and the condiments refreshing. The noodle was cooked to just the right tension and still piping hot from the open kitchen. It tasted just like 薑蔥撈麵. If you use the ginger-scallion sauce from the best Hainanese Chicken rice store in Singapore, you might not be able to tell the difference. Such a simple dish, but the execution made all the difference.

Quiet!! Enjoy your ramen 一蘭 (Ichiran)

If you think cuisine should be enjoyed by sharing your experience at the point of consumption, Ichiran is not for you. Ichiran provides an environment where you do the minimal amount of talking and focus your energy solely on a great bowl of tonkotsu (pork bone soup) ramen (noodle). After you bought your meal tickets from the auto-vending machine outside, you go into the main restaurant which is basically rows of seats separated like library booths. Once inside, all you need to do is to decide on exactly how your bowl of ramen should come out. Unlike other ramen shops, you don't get a selection of soup base or toppings, instead you choose the texture of your noodles, how thick you want you soup and how spicy etc. For details check out their own website here.

Try it next time you're in Japan!!