marutama ramen

ok. i'll admit. i lied. perhaps i said things that i shouldn't have. perhaps it was inappropriate given the circumstances. perhaps i wasn't being fair. perhaps.

yeah. i've said some mean things about marutama. truth is though, i haven't eaten there. but i've read alot of reviews and i have foodie relatives, in addition to my mum and sis, who have gone there and said that it wasn't anything great. but worse of all, they use chicken broth..

chubby hubby wrote about it a long time ago and he quite liked it. i guess maybe the standard has gone down, or maybe CH really likes the chicken soup ramen. i guess everybody has different tastes.

i wasn't really interested in going down to central (or liang court) just to try chicken soup noodles. but then after awhile i started feeling guilty. so one fine day, i decided to go down to central to try it out for myself.

so i drove down to central, and parked there. now, for those of you who haven't parked at central before, the carpark is insanely head-splitting. it's like taka X 2. it goes round and round and round and doesn't stop. at least at taka you have that "50m left" sign to tell you that your pain is coming to an end. but at central, no such consolation was provided. i must admit though that the central carpark has a damn nice view of the city. you could put a restaurant up there and no one would know better.

so we took the escalator down to the 3rd floor and we could see marutama right there. a nice, clean shop, which looked neatly new with black furniture and an open kitchen where you could see the cooking going on. i sat down and stared at the bare menu. there were only 2 types of ramen. the marutama ramen, and the spicy marutama ramen. along with that were a few appetizers, some skewered chicken, grilled charsiew (pictured) and other little compliments. i was unimpressed. nonetheless, i tried to remain objective and looked forward to the ramen.

by the time the food arrived, it was about noon. now i didn't have any breakfast. considering i woke up at 9am, that meant i was hungry. and cranky. and that everything should taste damn good. the charsiew on rice came first, and i took a couple mouthfuls of it. the charsiew was dry. it seemed cooked to long, in addition to being to lean, causing it to be absent of flavor. it wasn't horrible, but neither was it anything to hoot about. it went alright with the pickles though, which i kind of enjoyed.

the ramen arrived shortly after. now if you're looking for a ramen that has loads of garnishing, you'll be sorely disappointed. all you get was one or two slices of charsiew (for $12). and that doesn't even come with the standard half egg. you had to actually order the egg as a side.

i tasted the soup. salty and bland. it definitely tasted like chicken flavored instant noodle soup. "ok, i thought. you should have expected this. it's chicken soup base ramen." then i tried the noodles. they tasted like the thin nissin instant noodles that you get. it's thin and springy and really instant-noodle-ish. considering i was staring when i ate this, it was definitely not a good sign. however, i must admit that the egg was really good. perfectly cooked to retain its soft interior. the best part of the meal.

to be honest, i'm hard pressed to find any reason to go back there. the food is definitely not as good, and it's even more expensive then menya. so i'm quite sure you'll probably never catch me here again. well, at least we had good green tea ice cream from central for dessert.