Wow, and I thought I was an early bird! Looks like news has spread already and it's already getting crowded! I arrived at 7:10 pm on Saturday and was required to sit at a table for four with two other customers. Luckily, there was no queue. On the other hand, there was still a huge queue at ButaO, which was just located right across the street. The shop was slightly bigger than ButaO and a lot more spacious.Again, I came here because of the food reviews and enticing photographs of the "Red" ram
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Wow, and I thought I was an early bird! Looks like news has spread already and it's already getting crowded!
I arrived at 7:10 pm on Saturday and was required to sit at a table for four with two other customers. Luckily, there was no queue. On the other hand, there was still a huge queue at ButaO, which was just located right across the street. The shop was slightly bigger than ButaO and a lot more spacious.
Again, I came here because of the food reviews and enticing photographs of the "Red" ramen. It was a simple one page menu with three types of ramen only: "White", "Black" and "Red". In view of the generally artistic nature of Japanese people, I'm surprised the restaurant didn't have a fancier name for their ramens like most ramen shops, like King, Spirit, Samurai Bone, Legend, Earth,Wind&Fire...etc. I suppose the obvious candidates might be "Red David" or "Dance of Black"...etc.
Anyway, I ordered "Aka". There's no application form to fill in but the waitress will ask you whether you'd like your noodles to be soft, medium or hard. I chose medium plus the black fungi (きくらげ 黑木耳). She also suggested gyoza which I tried. After a 5-6 minutes, which was much faster than Buta O, my Aka arrived:
It was very aromatic when the noodle was placed on the table. I had a sip of the cold rice tea 玄米茶 (Genmaicha) before trying the broth.
The broth was quite special. The type of spiciness should be made from spicy miso and a bit of chilli oil. The white objects in the middle were chopped raw onions. This, together with the spring onions (not chives like Tatsuya), adds a bit of complexity to the Aka broth.
It wasn't too spicy for me I had to put a little bit of extra chilli oil into my noodle (at the very end just to try out the combination). The chilli sauce on the table was very interesting, it's quite similar to Kwai Lam chilli sauce but very finely grounded and had a slight but distinct taste of seafood (bonito or scrimps?)
The two tastes with really stood out the most was miso and garlic. It's a lot more garlicky than most ramen. Imagine crushing two to three extra cloves of garlic into your Daruma or Ippudo pork bone broth and you'll get the picture!
The pork bone broth was slightly thicker than Daruma but not as strong as ButaO. It's probably a bit similar to Ippudo. It gets progressively stronger and stronger if you don't eat it quickly once your taste buds fully registered the garlic essence in the broth. So focus on eating it and not taking photos like me. It will taste a lot better!
All in all, I agree with other food reviewers that the soup was good.
The noodles were quite nice. It's the thin Kyushu noodle. It gets soft pretty quickly so I suggest you eat it quickly and order the hard version. The bamboo shoots and black fungi tasted nice and mixed well with the noodle and the broth. The black fungi possibly had a bit of sesame in it. It's a lot better than those provided in ButaO.
The egg was practically completely cooked. So if you're here for the egg, you'll be disappointed.
The Char Siu, however, was just so so. It looked tender but actually wasn't as tender as you might think. Certainly the fat part was soft but the meat was quite tough. Just a bit of meat taste.
Gyoza was not good at all and was the main reason why I initially wanted to put just OK on my scale (I eventually did after thinking long and hard). It's gooey and very hard to separate the gyozas. Even the supposedly crispiest bottom part was not crispy enough. The gyoza, which appeared to have only frozen pork as the filling without chives or onions or other fillings, had absolutely no juice inside. I could not taste any pork taste. Osaka Osho is much better (whether the frozen ones you make at home or those served at food courts). Not recommended.
The pork bone broth was delicious. It's thicker than Daruma but not as thick as ButaO, somewhat similar to Ippudo !?
The Aka ramen had a very strong garlic taste and appears to be spicy miso based (with some chilli oil). It's quite good if you want to focus on enjoying the pork bone broth. It will not overwhelm the pork taste.
The char siu and the egg were nothing special.
The noodle was nice. I suggest you ordering the hard version. Make sure you eat it a.s.a.p otherwise the broth will become too strong and the noodle be become soft rather quickly.
I will not recommend the gyoza. If you like Japanese gyoza, I'll recommend "Osaka Osho" nearby at Times Square.
If you are fussy about the egg and char siu, you'll be disappointed. If you like the noodle and pork bone broth but don't mind the egg and char siu- it's Good because of the very nice broth.
Perhaps they are getting used to the sudden increase in customers? The service was good despite that. Everyone was very friendly and had a smile on their faces. Seemed professionally trained. I'll probably return again once the quality is more stabilized.
What I'd like to share with you, and which I personally think is more important than my humble opinion about the taste of the food, is this:
Two girls who sat in front of me after the previous customers had left, ordered a "White" and a "Red" ramen. When the ramen arrived, they took a few photos which was seemed to be very professional cameras (I did not look at them as I was focusing on the ramen and I think it's quite rude to interrupting them by staring). They started eating the ramen and were commenting positively on the ramens they were having.
At the same time, at the other end of the table, I was finding it quite hard to finish the last two pieces of gyoza. I was wondering whether I should just leave it where it was (partly to show my dissatisfaction and partly since it was not easy to finish it...)
...they then commented that they were really really happy, and I believe they really meant it wholeheartedly, that they found another ramen restaurant which they could enjoy - such positive gratefulness.
题外话/补充资料：
＊”大阪王將”．Times Square分店另有食評．或可供大家參考．
I overheard a few persons saying that it's very spicy. [My tolerance to spiciness: I like Korean cuisines and SiChuan Hotpot, which I find quite spicy. I can't really handle Vindaloo curry. "Fukuoka Noodle" is the spiciest ramen I've had so far. ]
I remembered reading an article somewhere about a group of Indian students who got an award for explaining the human's reaction to chilli. Most importantly for our purposes, they revealed the secret of reducing the spicy sensation if it's too much - sweetness. Apparently, adding a spoonful of sugar or having something sweet will help much more than drinking 10 glasses of water (even that won't generally help much anyway). So try it at your own risk.
(2) I've double checked the website of "David Ramen". It was opened since 2000.
I'll noticed that they did have pork bone broth but not the "Black" and the "Red" in the Japanese menu. The red, black and white division was also missing. Shoyu and Miso ramen, which are actually the most traditional and popular styles, are only available in Japan and not in Hong Kong. Perhaps that's why the restaurant didn't have a specific name for the 3 coloured divisions?
If you think about it, when a new ramen shop didn't have the "White X", "Black X" and "Red X", would you be as interested in it ? This must have evolved into quite a distinct Hong Kong phenomenon since Buta O.
假如要選出十大香港人至愛食品，相信日式拉麵絕對能佔據其中一個席位，沒有做過正式調查，但祇要到稍有人氣的拉麵店轉過圈，不難發現人龍隨處可見，有些食客更甘願等上一、兩個小時，為的就是花十至十五分鐘品嚐一碗拉麵，這樣的客觀事實，足以證明拉麵在香港的受歡迎程度吧！登龍街從以往出名吃火鍋和大排檔的小街，搖身一變成為日本過江龍的駐港根據地；先有＜豚王拉麵＞的出現，再來是於一個多月前正式開幕的大阪燒肉店＜好樂滿＞，現在又有剛剛進駐香港的日本拉麵店 David Ramen，中文名叫作＜舞心＞，好不熱鬧的一條 “日本餵食街”。作為拉麵愛好者，以往一有新店便會立即跑去試，但近半年內香港新拉麵店的湧現速度實在太快，水準亦有高有低，現在已經學懂靜觀其變，謹慎出擊；早前有幾間大有來頭的新店，至今還沒有試的衝動，但這裡不一樣，看過幾位食友的相片和評論，已經感覺質素甚有保證，忍不住在正式開幕的第三天已經來了品嚐，果然沒有讓我失望。平日的下午五點到來，剛剛是店舖午休後的開門時間，沒有其他客人，可以自由地四處拍照；小店地方不算寬敞，但卻座得舒服，絕對沒有背靠背，手肘碰手肘的情形出現，體貼顧客的安排；舖面一半劃作用餐空間
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不過說它只靠明星帶生意又不對, 因為到現時為止在日本分店巳開了7家, 去年在澳門更加開了第一家海外分店,
先嘗口湯, 味道很清, 比一風堂的更少油脂. 豬骨味是很夠, 帶有淡淡香味, 很順喉. 不過我個人本身喜好濃湯底, 所以硬是覺得不能滿足口感.
我要了偏硬, 煮出來的硬度正是我想要的, 掛湯強而且帶有韌度, 屬高水準那一群.
叉燒肉質柔軟, 偏瘦了一點, 如果肥脂多一點點會更甘香可口.
一碟5隻, 煎成一大塊上碟. 不過煎得不算脆口.
餃子皮厚薄適中, 內裡的肉比較多, 菜反而有點少, 一個人KO了5隻之後有點油膩感.
