Thursday, January 27, 2011

Ajisen Ramen (味千ラーメン), Bourke Street, Melbourne

I haven't been keeeping up my Ramen Diary much, simply because I haven't been eating very much ramen. Back in Australia, you see - after tasting the divine ramens of Osaka, I was worried that I would be unable to enjoy the sub-par ramens that I have experienced in Australia. But today, I had a craving for ramen so deep that I decided to brave a ramen house here in Melbourne. And I am thankful that I did. Yes, I have had better ramens; but this one satisfied my craving for the salty, garlicy white pork bone broth, and the firm elastic noodles of a genuine ramen.



Ajisen ramen is a chain store, originally from Kumamoto city, Kumamoto prefecture with 120 branches througout the world. I decided that I would try their name-sake ramen "Ajisen ramen" on my first visit. I entered the door, slightly unsure as to how I should approach this ersatz ramen-ya. No one shouted "irashaimase" - I stood and waited to be seated - but the familiar indication of how many diners were expected using fingers seemed like a nice continuity. I was placed at a bar by the window.

Firstly, I might just say that the ambiance of this ramen store was somewhere between just right and all wrong. The dark wood furniture seemed authentic enough, but I could barely make out what the music was on the stereo for the sound of people talking. No one talks at a good ramen store! I began to feel concerned. If people are doing things other than slurping soupy noodles, this made me fearful for the quality of the ramen. Fifteen minutes later I was still reading my book not eating soup. Again! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Ramen appears almost instantly. The young woman who seated me took too long to bring the menu, took too long to take my order, and then took too long to bring my soup. She clumsily elbowed me out of the way to put the ramen down in front of me. I'm used to someone throwing a ramen at me from over the bar with a gruff grunt and little else.



But then when we get to the business end of the ramen, I was pretty happy with what got served up to me. It looked, most certainly, like an authentic tonkotsu style broth. There was the black jelly fungus and accompanying oil, green onions, two slices of roast pork, and half a boiled egg.

The noodles were great. Thin, slurpy, elastic, nice to bite with the front teeth, good to chew with the back. The soup had nice body, not too rich, not too salty. It's hard to say just how much oil should be slicking around on the top of a ramen, but this one was not sickly, and added to the mouth feel of the soup without leaving me with an oily chin.

The toppings were a bit lack lustre. An egg in the top of a ramen is ideally juuuuust firm, still a little runny and brightly coloured. This egg looked like a tea egg, had a chalky pale yolk and barely added to the meal at all. The pork was very thinly sliced, and perhaps a bit of a skimpy portion. The green onions and black jelly fungus were fine. There were some chunks of garlic in there and a few sesame seeds but there were absolutely no sides at all. No chili oil, no garlic chips, no nothing.

It was expensive too. $9.50 for their cheapest ramen. I looked at the website and the same ramen was a dollar more in Brisbane (lending more weight to my theory that Brisbane has the worst food prices in Australia). But that said, it was most definitely ramen, and I think I will try another style of ramen on their menu next time. They had about 14 ramen items on the menu (including curry ramens and other weird things).

It's nice to know that I can still get a ramen even if I do have to live in Australia.


Broth: 3.5/5
Toppings: 2/5
Noodles: 4/5
Atmosphere: 2/5
Service: 2/5