Best ramen in the world

Tra­di­tional Japan­ese Cur­tains for you to konk heads with depart­ing customer

Naomi and I have been to this place, I dunno, four, five times already in the last two months, and con­sid­er­ing we don’t go out very often, it prob­a­bly means we like the food a lot.

Plas­tic mod­els of dishes to help you decide while queue­ing

Ramen San­touka is a ramen restau­rant fran­chise, with restau­rants in Japan, U.S. and Sin­ga­pore (yay!), and most of the reviews I’ve man­aged to find so far have been good. Well, that’s sort of an understatement:

One sip of the Shio broth…

Daaaaaaaaaaang!

That broth is on point. It’s like drink­ing pork fla­vored but­ter. Their shio broth puts me in a place of utter hap­pi­ness. It’s like grow­ing up in a world with­out mama whoop­ings and big brother noo­gie spree.

- Oishii Eats on San­touka West L.A.

san­touka is bomb, the food is fuck­ing good. it’s a bit pricey but it’s worth the indul­gence. you gotta get the salt ramen with nato. it might make your breath stink, but it’ll make your tongue happy.

- roe, I., L.A.

That’s L.A.. The more dis­cern­ing Sin­ga­porean palate reacted in some­what sim­i­lar fashion:

Oh. My. God.

That taste? For that price? Looks a lit­tle thick and rough but once it touches your mouth? OOhhh…it’s soft, chewy not too fatty and the flavours burst right into your mouth while it melts. If their ‘nor­mal’ chasu already tastes this good, I can’t imag­ine what the choice cheek cuts must be like.

- Aaron Loy about the pork chasu slices in the Sin­ga­pore branch

Yes, folks, the food is that good.

Then again, this is no ordi­nary ramen chain (like Ajisen Ramen, whose web­site title reads ‘Best Ramen in Sin­ga­pore’, which is like, “it is so not lor!”) where local teenage wait­ing staff butcher Japan­ese greet­ing phrases any old how. It’s ok not to make eye con­tact when you’re wel­com­ing cus­tomers to your restau­rant because it’s busy and all that. But the wait­ing to be seated rit­ual usu­ally goes like:

Waiter:
WASHSMRMSMMSRRSRSHARE! Table for two?

Us:
Yes pl…

Waiter:
WASHSMRMSMMSRRSRSHARE!

Us:
…ease.

That’s how they cut you off mid-sentence, because some other cus­tomer has walked in behind you and the young waiter is trained to greet all cus­tomers promptly and LOUDLY, at the expense of the Japan­ese lan­guage, and of the long term hear­ing abil­i­ties of the cus­tomer in front of you. And so it goes on:

Waiter:
OK, this way please. WASHSMRMSMMSRRSRSHARE! What drink you like? WASHSMRMASMRSRHARE! Today’s set is… WASHMARSRMMSRRSHARE! What? You don’t want to eat here any­more? WASHSHHMMMSRSHHSHARE! Why? WASHSHHMMSRWSHARE! We have spe­cial promotion.

The local wait­ers at the Sin­ga­pore branch of Ramen San­touka also greet cus­tomers with a hearty irrasshaimase, but have been trained to do so with­out being so in your face lit­er­ally. Most days, there is a stern look­ing Japan­ese lady over­see­ing oper­a­tions (and the till), so I sup­pose stan­dards are kept in that regard.

Stan­dards are def­i­nitely kept high when it comes to the soup stock for Santouka’s ramen dishes. “Pork fla­vored but­ter” is a good descrip­tion of how hearty a meal is at this place, and as for it being a ‘place of utter hap­pi­ness’, well, I do think very fondly of ramen these days.

Sev­eral times in the past month alone, ramen had been the answer when Naomi asked what I wanted for din­ner. And if I had the prac­tice of say­ing grace before every meal, I’d end my prayer in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit ramen.

Kara-miso ramen

Now you know how blas­phe­mously good the soup stock is, you’ll want to know that there are also rice dishes to accom­pany your bowl of ramen. Char Siu Rice Bowl, Salmon Roe Rice Bowl, Grated Yam Rice Bowl, Fer­mented Bean Rice Bowl, Fried Rice Bowl & Green Onion Rice Bowl. These can be com­bined with your favourite ramen soup flavours, Shio (salt), Shoyu (soy), Miso (miso), and Kara Miso (spicy miso), to make set meals cost­ing between $15.50 — $19.50.

…accom­pa­nied by Green Onion Rice Bowl. Note the spoon sit­ting on its grooved edge. Nifty!

If you think a noo­dle meal is expen­sive at this price and you don’t want to pay any more for any­think else, there’s a pitcher of cold water on every table, gratis. But trust us, $20 is not a lot for food that will make you renounce atheism.

But the path to ramen nir­vana (hey that’s a good name for a restau­rant) isn’t easy. Ramen San­touka is tucked away in a cor­ner on the 2nd floor of The Cen­tral, Not To Be Con­fused With Cen­tral Mall Not To Be Con­fused With Cen­tral Square Which Are All Within One Kilo­me­tre Of Each Other.

And when you finally find the place, you might not get a table because it’s usu­ally very packed at meal times. Try going slightly ear­lier or later, but it really is worth the wait. And peo­ple do queue for a table, which is really amaz­ing because The Cen­tral is a mall which could be renamed “The Mall With The Most Japan­ese Restau­rants In Sin­ga­pore Hey We Even Have Two Azabu Sabo Ice Cream Joints In The Same Building”

The only other draw­back of Ramen San­touka is that it’s a cash only busi­ness. So prep up the wal­let before going.

Ramen San­touka
6 Eu Tong Sen Street
#02–76 The Cen­tral
Sin­ga­pore 059817
Tel: 62240668