A friend of ours was in town recently and she's a ramen girl. Yes, the last trip she was here, the 'Ramen Queen' had at least a bowl of ramen from the different shops!
This time she is here, we brought her to Ramen Keisuke Tori King that has been on her list of place to go. KopiKosongGirl and a few of our friends have been there, but I have been too busy to join them. This time round, I got to try it. The 3 of us went there on a Sunday afternoon around noon and probably it's the best time to go. There were no queues yet!
The big words means Chicken (Tori) King.
The newest branch of the Ramen Shops by Chef owner Keisuke Takeda. This is his first chicken based branch.
Oh, I recently read an interview about Chef Takeda. He was a French chef for 12 years before going into Japanese cooking! Most ramen chefs are trained right from the start as ramen chefs, but Chef Takeda has 12 years of French training in his 20 over years of cooking. Interesting eh?
This place is so much bigger than the other 'pork' branch nearby at Orchid Hotel. We do like the space here. Wider and hot as hot and warm as the other branch.
It's decorated with flags and bits of pieces of manga and old pieces of paper to look like the 60s and 70s. We probably won't appreciate it, but our parents might!
We order using the similar piece of paper as the 'pork' branch nearby. A sheet of order chit for each bowl. They took our orders and we were shown our seats.
Each of us have a some sesame seeds to crush, that's if you like them to be added into your ramen.
We found something quite interesting. If you are a guy, you will be served a blue glass of water. If you are a lady, they will serve you water in a pink glass! We observed the whole place and it's really blue for boys, pink for girls!
The free flow eggs if you feel like having more eggs. The 2 ladies did not touch it, I took one so that I can know how it taste like. It's hard boiled eggs.
Our friend is not a bean sprouts person, but kopikosonggirl and I are!
Nicely marinated sprouts that makes you want to keep eating it!
The little container on the left is some spicy sauce that looks a bit like 'sambal'. Japanese sambal if you want to call it, goes very well with the chicken thigh! They give you an empty plate for the chicken.
Our 'ramen queen' and kopikosonggirl both had the 'Black Spicy' Tori King Ramen Special with all toppings. $16.90.
Oh, doesn't it look so so good? The broth according to our friend Camemberu has been made from chicken bones, chicken feet and kombu with a cooking time of 8-9 hours.
The chicken thigh is a huge one that you can see covers almost the whole bowl. The chicken is probably cooked in some liquid for some time to be so tender. Most people said it's grilled chicken, but during the last time KopiKosongGirl and 2 other of our friends, 'monkey' and 'nic' was here, they saw that the chicken was flame torched to look so pretty. Yes, people who cooks like to peep into kitchens and see how things are done.
It does make sense, since we know the chef has French trained ;-)
It's not entirely chicken as there's a huge piece of 'chaa shuu' on it.
I have been reading a lot about sous vide food recently and I came across an interview that Chef says, he uses wine to marinate his pork and sous vide the meat as well! Japanese food from a Japanese chef with French background, how interesting the way he prepares his food eh? Best of both worlds!
The black spicy has the toasted szechuan peppercorn and garlic in oil poured over it. That's the difference between the black spicy and the original chicken broth version that I had.
I had the Tori King Ramen Special with All Toppings. $15.90.
Both ladies loved the chaa shuu, the chicken thigh, the egg, noodles, even the black fungus that was on it, but found that the chicken broth is a bit overpowering. Our Ramen Queen liked it but could not finish it all as it was a bit oily and peppery, probably because they had the 'black spicy'.
I like the my ramen and after tasting the ladies' black spicy and mine, I prefer the original chicken broth. It's easier on the palate. The chicken broth was really rich and flavourful. You can taste that it has been boiled and reduced for hours. You got to have it before it turns cold.
I finished up all my noodles and half the bowl of broth. I thought it was a bit wasted if I don't finish all the goodness in it, so I cracked open a hard boiled egg and ate it with the broth. Yummy (the soup, not the hard boil egg, remember to go for the Tamago egg ajitama !)
The big board that greets you at the main entrance.
(You can click on the photo above to see the bigger version of it if you want to read the words.)
Ramen Keisuke Tori King
100 Tras Street
#03-15
Amara Hotel Shopping Mall (aka 100AM)
Singapore 079027
Tel: +65 6604 6861
Hours: 11:30 AM to 10:00 PM daily.
