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| - Ah, March Madness. A time for chicken wings, pizza, and...ramen? Yes. For some unexplainable reason, an outside universal force told me to go out and eat ramen. I knew Shoku Ramen-ya was right around the corner, so the adventure began!
When I arrived, I sat down, and I was presented with a large container of water, and a shot glass. At first, I questioned whether or not they were serving me sake. It's a minor complaint, but I wasn't a fan of having to refill my water shot glass 27 times.
THE RAMEN: When I order ramen at a new place for the first time, I like to keep it simple. I ordered Tonkotsu ramen. My ramen arrived 10-15 minutes later, kind of a long time considering the restaurant was only half full.
The first thing I immediately noticed was that there was only one piece of pork. The pork was tender and delicious. However, half of that piece of pork was entirely fat and nearly inedible.
Next, I dove straight into the noodles. The ramen was cooked perfectly. I then grabbed my spoon and proceeded to taste some of the broth on its own. The broth was very one-dimensional. It had some pork flavor, but it wasn't EXPLODING with pork flavor. This wasn't good because the noodles were lacking that pork flavor that they desperately needed. The ramen also felt as if it was lacking salt. You're probably laughing at the fact I just said that, "What? Ramen? Lacking Salt? You're crazy, Alex!" It goes back to what I said about the flavors being one-dimensional. I added an excessive amount of soy sauce to get that saltiness, and the ramen tasted 10x better.
THE VERDICT: From the inferior amount of pork (which was also extremely fatty) to the bland broth, it just wasn't good. Stick with Monta. It tastes better, and it's cheaper.
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