Cars, Food and the Ladies of Hong Kong & Macau: 拉麵來 Ramen Kureha (Hong Kong)

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

拉麵來 Ramen Kureha (Hong Kong) - ♕♕♕♕

I previously mentioned in my David’s 舞心でびっと ramen review that I have eaten some average noodles here at Kureha. I am not back tracking entirely from that stance but as a foodie I have my own subjectivity and opinions, so please, always rely on the overall statistics available out there from everyone’s contribution to form your own idea before you eventually visit!! I can only ever be part of that overall pool of mathematics so it’s always going to be slightly biased however I try to avoid it… Back to David’s 舞心 for example, some friends were quite happy with the ramen bowls whereas some other reviewers thought the soup was too weak or the noodles too soft or carried lye water taste, or thought that the gyoza dumpling skins stuck together a little too much. Blogs will never be objectively fair plus there is the eminency of having enough luck on your visiting days and whether the main chef is cooking or in a good mood.. (losing a wager on horse gambling, having a divorce, etc)! No one is ever entirely right, so it is only fair that I write about here and try my best to be fairer somehow.

The queue -
Not too bad, but items do sell out fast, especially the signature thick soup noodles 魂の一杯 and the Abura Soba drizzled with chicken oil..

Don’t you just love this set up?
Just the amount of effort they have put in to make this so homely,
already gives enough incentive to at least pay here one visit or two..

Noodle Making Machine -
Same as at Sugetsu Ramen 麵鮮醬油房周月, they make their own ramen noodles in house here.
I think whether you have your noodles imported from Japan, or made by an OEM manufacturer, or making it yourself in house doesn’t make too much difference. But you have to give them the hats off for attempting to do this. *Somehow reminds me of coffee and roasting in-house.

Gold Ramen: Thick Tonkotsu Soup Ramen (金濃厚豬骨湯拉麵) – $78
This is the ramen with the 2nd thickest broth available, their even thicker Award Winning one sells out early everyday and is limited to only 30 bowls daily. The soup in this normal version was already very very sludgy thick… it surprisingly doesn’t carry much pork taste though. The Char Siu this day tasted good but came a little broken. ~ 6/10

Noodles on this visit -
Despite ordering hard this came out quite soft and not carrying much noodles taste.
This improved however, on a 2nd visit. Smile

Crushed Garlic, Chili Oil, Sesame, Soy Sauce and Vinegar to go with Abura Soba -
Not much more optional pickles or add ons, compared to say Butao.

White Truffle Wild Mushrooms Tonkotsu Ramen (白松露野菌豚骨湯) – $108
The soup is as above, of the 超こってり thickish type. To the point it is thicker than the thickest I’ve tried in Japan. I don’t mind this as long as the noodles can still be slurped up in a manageable fashion and not unable to separate itself from the thick broth, like the favourite pages in your issue of Playboy magazine… The biggest issue to me was that this was too thick yet carrying not much advertised mushrooms or pork flavours. It is almost like drinking collagen without asking the question - where did that promised white truffle or mushroom flavour went?

Noodles -
Using a mid-width and straight noodles 中太ストレート麺, this is probably more Tokyo/Yokohama style than is Kyushu. The noodles this time performed way better than above, with a nice bite and even more wheaty taste. This really made up for the slightly imbalanced soup base.

炙りチャーシュー　(Flame Grilled Char Siu) - $23
These are flame grilled with a blowtorch, and already better than the above pieces. The white ring of fat still remained however, and it wasn’t one of the best char sius in town. A little disappointed although not necessarily that bad!

味付玉子 Marinated Egg - $15
This wasn’t overly marinated though.

Egg Centre -
Was cooked perfect. It didn’t have enough external marination taste,
but was still decent enough..

Retro feel posters imported from Japan -
I actually thought the ramens here were quite decent, and there are still the optional Chicken Stock or the Chicken oil based Abura Ramen I haven’t tried. The noodles have certainly improved from the beginning. The soup base was still similar in that it was too thick and tend to seal your lips together. Which is occasionally appreciated in Japan too but here wasn’t that flavourful, which kind of defeats the purpose of having ramen with such a thickish soup. But that, is once again, totally my opinion ! You might appreciate tasteless collagen fat, more than I need them ?