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2014-09-21
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新豚王?濃郁的純豚骨湯頭。赤骨又香又有辣勁。麵條和叉燒都不錯。推介。Reincarnation of Butao?Rich Hakata style ramen;Great Spicy Ramen with rich broth;Good char siu.Recommended. My understanding was that the chef here had started Butao with other partners in Hong Kong before splitting up and setting up this ramen joint. It was originally called "BB Ramen" (Brain Buster) instead of "Nagi" (which was a group related to the chef). After sorting out their legal problems, it seems that BB has finally been allowed to use "Nagi". (?)Na
濃郁的純豚骨湯頭。
赤骨又香又有辣勁。
麵條和叉燒都不錯。
推介。
Reincarnation of Butao?
Rich Hakata style ramen;
Great Spicy Ramen with rich broth;
Good char siu.
Recommended.
My understanding was that the chef here had started Butao with other partners in Hong Kong before splitting up and setting up this ramen joint. It was originally called "BB Ramen" (Brain Buster) instead of "Nagi" (which was a group related to the chef). After sorting out their legal problems, it seems that BB has finally been allowed to use "Nagi". (?)Nagi is a big ramen group with 22 branches all over Asia. According to the list in the shop, the Hong Kong branch is the 20th branch. (However, they seem to have included Butao in their list. )
In view of the background, the ramen style here should be very similar to the original Butao.
Decor:They had about 4 tables for 4 persons and about 6-7 tables for smaller parties. All the tables were widly spaced out. The air-con wasn't too strong and could be stronger. It is lot more spacious than the Butao branches at CWB and at Central.
We went there at about 1:00pm and there was no queue. The waiter was very friendly and efficient. He patiently explained all the different styles of ramen to us .
Pickled vegetables and fresh garlic were placed on each table, as well as ice water, sesame and shichimi.
Menu:
All their broths are tonkotsu based (pork bone). They serve four standard ramen types with another option that varies periodically.The standard four are "Original", "Black"(garlic oil), "Red"(chili oil) and "Green"(Italian herbs with cheese). I can't remember what the "Limited Edition" ramen is now as I was totally focused on the spicy ramen only.
English menu is available. You could choose how rich you'd like the broth to be, whether to add garlic, char siu and to choose between adding spring onions or cabbage.
If you choose "Red", you could choose whether to add another hot sauce on top of the chili oil, which ranged between level 1 and level 10. I had intended to try out level 5 but was told that it was out of stock.
We ordered a Red and an Original.
Red:
Broth:
The broth was slightly different from the Red King in Butao. The spiciness and the aroma of the chili sauce were more pronounced here. It reminded me of Ikkosha (in Japan). The kara miso placed in the middle of the bowl was a scoop of marinated pork (probably in shoyu and mirin) with chili powder. It was rather sweet and really enhanced the texture of the whole broth. I prefer the Red ramen here than the one at Butao, which felt a bit like eating a dan dan mien instead of a ramen as the kara miso at Butao had a strong nutty taste. Anyway, the kara miso of both shops were way better than Ramen Kureha. The spicy ramen at Ramen Taifu was really good too. But I think I prefer the one here just a little bit more because I prefer pure tonkotsu instead of a broth with bonito powder added (like at Ramen Taifu).
The tonkotsu taste at Nagi was slightly milder than Butao, but still very rich compared to many ramen shops in Hong Kong. I think it's richer and slightly thicker than Ichiran (HK) and Ippudo. Perhaps a bit similar to Matsuichibanya and Nagahama No.1.
Noodles:
They used traditional Hakata style thin white noodles. I ordered extra hard. The texture was slightly harder than those served at Ichiran. No complaints at all. The noodles could draw the soup up fairly well.The portions were far more generous than those at Ichiran. It's at least 50-70% bigger and was rather filling.
Sides:
Char Siu: The Red ramen had a lot of chopped char siu in addition to about four pieces of shoulder pork meat. The char sius were relatively soft as far as lean meat is concerned. It was pretty good.Black fungi: These were nice and crunchy.
Negi: There were tons of spring onions in my broth. It's probably not Japanese negi. Nevertheless, it further enhanced the spicy broth so no complaints. Cabbage might be interesting as well.
Egg: Those who like their eggs runny should be satisfied about the "runniness" of the egg. It was a bit cold (which is fairly normal since it was placed in a separate bowl instead of inside the broth) and the taste was a bit bland. No complaints for just HK$10.
All in all, we were very happy with our ramens. HK$85 (without the egg) is quite reasonable for a bowl of quality ramen nowadays. There is no service charge but the sevice was very good. I was particularily impressed by their spicy broth so I think I'd return for more.Recommended.
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