Marutama Ra-men @ Central review

heeey.... another food blog again.... and again.... its Raaaaaaaaaaaaamen.

Told you I'm a noodle lover mah. Heard about this shop at Central quite long ago, and everytime I would definitely see a long queue outside this store. I don't like to wait at long queues, cos its just non-productive and tiring and sometime it just doesn't worth queuing at all after tasting!!! Well, we Singaporean just like queues, the longer the more curious you are... Long queue = Good stuff, but this equation is not absolute wo!!

Central @ Clarke Quay MRT station to me is really a badly design shopping center. The layout is horrible and the shops are just too 'unique'. There is so many hidden corners inside the shopping center that if you are adventurous to explore, you will never sees them. I just feel pity for all the shops hidding away from the main atrium. Everytime I walk into the 'hidden' wing, the number of opened shops is getting lesser. The owners are so bored that they actually stand outside chatting with each other. I am sure no matter how actively they advertise the mall on TV, using Japanese songs and colorful items to portrait the 'fun and in' image of the mall, the truth will be shown when you visit the mall.

The only interesting thing about Central mall is the relative large number of restaurants operating there. Besides that, one can forget about going to Central to shop. Ok, enough of bitching lousy shopping center. Let go back to ramen....

Name: Marutama Ra-men

Address: #03-90/91 The Central@Clarke Quay

Price: $15-$20

This shop is located at the 'restaurant wing' of the Central Mall. You can see the shop or the queue from ground floor by looking up the atrium. My friend and I went there early about 6pm on Saturday to avoid the long queue. Even so, the shop is nearly full, and we have only the counter seat to choose. The menu is very simple, selling mainly ramen and some side dishes.

The difference between this shop's ramen and others is that they are selling ramen in chicken soup base; whereas other ramen stores are generally using pork soup base. I ordered the 'Special' creation, the 'Aka ramen', which is addition of 7 nuts mixture onto their basic chicken soup base. My friend ordered the 'Mara karashi ramen', which is spicy chicken soup ramen.

First impression when it arrived was that it looked tasty with relatively thick soup base. Interesting part was that it comes with a slice of lemon too. Kinda funny when you are squeezing lemon juice into to soup noodles? It also came with 3 chicken meat balls and generous amount of spring onion and coriander leave. The soup taste relative thick, however, overall is not really fantastic. Although it does taste better than normal Jap restaurant's ramen. What I did not like is the overloaded amount of spring onion and coriander leave, they are simply too overpowering and cover up the delicate chicken taste. Personally I don't like coriander leave, so its really a turn off when coriander leave taste is on every mouth of soup and noodles.

I also tasted my friend's spicy chicken soup ramen. Well I can say that it is really nothing fantastic, and taste like normal chicken soup and again with loads of spring onion and coriander leaves. Without the nut mixture, the soup taste even thinner. And for a Singaporean standard, the spiciness is no kick. The ramen is thinner than the usual ramen and first look on it, one may think that it is just the 'you mien or mee kia' found in wanton noodles. Texture wise, its no big deal too, not really springy and it taste really like 'you mien'. The chicken balls are a dissappointment too, not much taste and dry.

The serving portion is rather small and for a $15 bowl of ramen, you only get 3 chicken meat balls and that's all. It is definitely not enough for a healthy and active young man like me!!! While my friend's version only have 1 piece of char siew!! Think of it, it is kinda expensive.

Overall, this ramen store fails to impress me. I would not purposely revisit again in near future though.

3 Stars are awarded by me.