Ramen hunt @ Ajisen Ramen

Ajisen Ramen

130 Bourke Street
Melbourne VIC

It has been a while since Miss P and I had Ramen.  When I thought about it, the last time that we ate ramen was couple of months back when we went to Sydney.  No wonder why our craving for ramen started to act up a bit, especially on me, whom has a love for noodles.  I know by heart that I wouldn't be able to find any ramen like the ones at Ryo's at Crows Nest or Menya noodle bar on Market Street  in Sydney, but I still do have hope that at least, there will be a good ramen in Melbourne.

After passing by Ajisen Ramen for numerous time, I decided that I should at least put my chopsticks into the ramen to see whether Ajisen is worth to be on my ramen list or not. 

Ajisen Ramen looks like a fast food restaurant that offered Japanese style food, where there are plenty of choices to choose from (Ramen and rice).  The service is OK, not that exceptionally outstanding since I still need to grap the attention of the staff every time I needed something.

The choices that we picked for the day was Ramen set A + extra ($17.5) and B + extra ($16.5).  Under set A menu, Miss P picked Tonkatsu Ramen with extra volcano sauce on the side and a small Chahan.  For me, I went with Volcano Ramen with corn on the side and Tori Karaage.  For drinks, we went with Hot Green Tea ($1.6)

Couple of minutes later, the Tori Karaage made an appearance on our table.  Pretty fast for the food to come out considering the fact that we just ordered couple of minutes back.  Anyway, the karaage was nice, crispy deep fried chicken served with mayonnaise and cream salad on the side. 

Next was the small Chahan, came out straight from the wok.  Just a little garnish of spring onion on the top and kaboom, chahan on the plate.  The taste was OK, just like a normal fried rice in any other Chinese restaurant. One good thing was that it had a charred smell from the wok that made this a completed fried rice dish.

 After we had a taste on the karaage and chahan, our ramen finally came out from the kitchen.  Tonkatsu Ramen and Volcano Ramen.  Both ramen had similar toppings, except that Miss P's ramen had tonkatsu and mine had chashu.  The first glance, I thought to myself that it kinda alright, not too bad judging by the presentation and the look alone.  However, the first sip of the soup made my heart sink - I knew it right away that I wouldn't be able to finish this ramen.  The soup base was quite bland, it didn't have the sweetness of the tonkotsu.  The volcano sauce also didn't give a big hit of chili.  It only gave a hint of spiciness and that was all it gave.  The noodle was the big disappointment for me - it was soggy.  I felt that the noodle they used wasn't really a ramen noodle.  Miss P also agreed that the soup based wasn't quite right, there was no sweetness of the tonkotsu base.  It lacked the usual flavour of ramen - slighty salty but yet contained sweetness and nice aroma from the stock.

 Now come the after match, the only thing that Miss P and I liked about the food at Ajisen Ramen was the Tori Karaage.  It was a deep fried chicken, surely nothing could go wrong with it, and yes, it tasted like any usual karaage.  Apart from that, nothing else from Ajisen could fix our disappointment in the taste of ramen, which we left them half eaten and unloved.

+Disclaimer: The commentary contained in this blog is purely based on my own opinion and experience at the time of visit. Taste is a subjective and yours and mine can be differed.