Menya Musashi Kodou

A friend commented that Menya Musashi serves very good Japanese ramen, so we decided to go to the Ion Orchard branch for a try.  This branch is called Menya Musashi Kodou.  Kodou, means tiger's cave!

The interior design fits the name well.  Paintings of tigers are on the wall's fake screens.  It does give the ancient Japanese look of it.  

Overhead, paper lanterns were hung, dim and mysterious.  It feels like you have been transported to a back alley in Tokyo during the Edo period, when samurais roamed the streets.  

There are around 10 branches of this ramen brand in Singapore, but different branches have different styles of ramen.  For example, this one we visited in Ion Orchard and the one in Westgate share the same style.  Their ramen are of the H-shape, whilst the one at Raffles City, for example, has their ramen in O-shape.  For ramen, the essence is in the soup, as they always say.  In this branch, their branch is a triple boiled soup.  

My order is the original white char siew ramen with four pieces of white char siew.  Char siew is obviously another essential ingredient of a ramen.  Each piece of char siew is worth $1.00.  Japanese char siew is quite different from Chinese char siew.  The most visible difference is in the color.  Chinese char siew is distinctively red, while Japanese char siew is roasted brown in the outside, and white inside.

Here it is the H-shape ramen in close-up.  Do they look like two pieces of ramen sticking together?  The ramen is firm.  Every bite reminds you of the wheat growing in the vast field under the blue sky.  

Authentic Japanese ramen is always heavy when it comes to salt usage.  This one is of no exception.  The soup is thick and salty.  The heavy taste should satisfy those who like the authentic and original ramen, but it will be too strong (and less healthy) for people who are not so used to things too salty.