A bowl of Ramen

The everlasting queues had caught our attention last weekend and this is how we came about knowing ketsuke tonkotsu king! Just happened that we are around the corner tonight and decided to patronise this place. I was rather surprised to see that there is such long queue even on a weekday night. However, the queue was fast moving and you can help yourself to chilled water they served outside. Ordered the special Tonkotsu at $14.90 and Black Tonkotsu with our choice of normal noodles (you can choose soft/hard/normal), taste of the soup (light/normal/strong). Beansprouts, bonito flakes and hardboil eggs are free flow – you can take the bowl on the table and fill it up from the self service counter.

Notice

Black fungus and egg are included in the bowl of ramen. When the ramen was finally served, I was greeted with a typical ramen bowl, and a large piece of seaweed. On first sight, the ramen did not catch my attention. It was plain, all i could see was the flavoured egg, cha shu (single piece only!) and no other garnishing whatsoever.

The ramen soup base was delicious at the first taste but when I’m almost dry up with the soup I find that my mouth becomes thirstier.

Noodles, however, was a different story. One bowl was cooked well, and the noodles was soft but not mushy, with a tinge of springiness. The other bowl was unfortunately too hard, though we ordered both to be normal texture.

The next thing that defines all authentic Japanese pork bone based soup ramen, is the cha shu. It came out to be nothing fantastic. The meat did retain it's distinctive porky taste, but the lack of flavour did not help to enhance the ramen either. Also, the cha shu was too lean, without fat to give it a softer texture.
Love the egg, the egg yolk is soft and a little watery like most Japanese ramen egg.

Egg, Yummy!

Service
The man who had carried the hot bowl of ramen speaks very local singlish which makes me feel so at home even though it was a Japanese restaurant.
He will say “wait a little while, can?” when someone put on a request.
We make our order over a piece of paper during our queue. Food are served shortly after being seated.

Ambience
A very squeezy shop with about less than 30 seatings. I was offered a seating at one of the extreme corner where which I find that the shop has a very odd shape, there was something protruding out and I can only take half of the available space and had one of my legs raised on top of the curb. They leave little or no space in between the tables and I have to squeeze myself through the narrow aisles.

Price
Relatively average ramen pricing in the market.

Recommendations / Tips
Becareful not to knock over someone in the shop or things will topple.

Ramen Keisuke Tonkotsu King
Location: Orchid Hotel, 1 Tras Link #01-19 078867