I find the ramen soup very oily and not tasty enough. Although the slices of pork are tasty but they do not satisfy me at all as they are only two on top of a big bowl of noodles and vegetables.

I give low rating for the services because the waitress spilled the soup onto the floor while trying to place the ramen onto the table. When we requested the restaurant to give us a bowl of soup as they were really not much soup left in the bowl, they refused.

26 OCT 2008

I think I am addicted to the ramen served at this place... Why? Coz I found myself returning to Robertson Quay again!! Heheheh…

I really loved their Mazesoba, but I promised myself to try something new. So we picked the Miso-based, Scorched Sasame, Pork Ramen, and as before... OPTED for the Citibank promotion of free extra noodle. :)
This was enough for the two of us to share and it suited us just right as we wanted their delicious fried dumplings as well.

Miso Pork Mayu Ramen [Rating: 8.5/10]
Differ from their Sinjiro, there were no 'mountain' of letteuce. But still, beneath a mount of bean sprouts, finely chopped spring onions, and slices of seaweed were a sea of thin noodles - plentiful!! This time round, their soy flavored egg was closer to perfection compared to the one I had on my last visit. Finally, a few slices of fatty but divine charsiew complete the picture. The clear soup turned dark as soon as wifey mixed everything up. This Miso Pork Ramen was indeed excellent!! The freshness of their thin noodles… ahhhh… The Q-ness!! LOVED it!! I must try the thin noodles with their Mazesoba next time round!

Pan Fried Dumpling [Rating: 8.75/10]
Like their ramen, the fried dumplings there were consistantly excellent!! Pan-fried to perfection, each one of the gyozas was huge, and exploding with nice delicious fillings. At the price of S$5.00 for 5 of these dumplings, its well worth it!!

I just can't wait for my next visit to try their Spicy Mazesoba with the thin noodles!!

More Pics and other reviews can be seen here...

I have finally gotten down to writing a review for menya shinchan, another Japanese noodle restaurant I have eaten at in my quest for the best ramen in town. So anyway I dragged my partner along one Thursday evening and we walked from the sub courts (Chinatown) to Robertson quay (it is totally walkable!) and after getting lost around ichibantei at Robertson quay we walked past les bouchons at the tyler print institute and after asking for directions from a rival Japanese restaurant we FINALLY found the place. As you can imagine, we were both quite hungry by then.

Anyway, based on the recommendations by past reviewers we had:

Spicy mazesoba - spicy dry noodle
Soya sauce pork bone ramen super rich sinjiro with vegetable

I had the spicy mazesoba. Because I figured where else could I get this! And prior to that I was looking at the pictures from other reviewers and it looked terribly appetizing. Ok anyway other reviewers were right about the large amount of noodles - the bowl is so big and so filled it really did formidable when it was served. The noodles that came with this dish was rather thick. Slightly less thick than udon (which is kinda weird because its supposed to be ramen but it reminded me more of udon than anything), but as I found out later from the waitress, menya shinchan serves three types of ramen. There is very thin, medium and then thick. (which I think is the by default noodle they use for all dishes so you must clearly specify you want a thinner ramen if you don’t want the thick noodles) So anyway the spicy mazesoba wasn’t that spicy, but it was filled with a lot of vegetables - some kinda cabbage and beansprouts (healthy) and it wasn’t exactly dry because it came with a thick base that became more soupy towards the end. Theres a blob of cheese (which is kinda funny but whatever goes) and some fried onions (or something like that), some bamboo shoots I think as well as pieces of charsiew. The dish was okay, but in my opinion not totally outstanding. I actually think the thick ramen killed it for me because I was focusing on how much noodles I could stuff into myself and making a dent in my heaped up bowl. And I also thought the base was a little oily and not particularly tasty.

My partner had the soya sauce pork bone ramen super rich sinjiro with vegetable (on the recommendation of what was most popular by the waitress) and that was also heaped to the brim with vegetables also, and it was quite the struggle to finish the dish - not just because of the amount of noodles, but because he had me taste some of the soup and he felt it was just full of soya sauce and nothing else. In other words - it was too salty and it was not tasty. I am inclined to agree with him.

You know the ramen they serve there (based on the thick one we had) is something we’ve both never had before. It wasn’t like a ramen place. It felt more like a Japanese soup noodle type place - because at most ramen joints you don’t get vegetables with your ramen. You get things like bamboo shoots and corn. Not cabbage and beansprouts! And the soup base wasn’t like any ramen soup based we’ve had before also. Im not saying that the restaurant wasn’t good, but it was just very different.

We tried to order some gyozas when the waitress was taking down our orders but she wisely advise us to hold off till after we had our ramen served to decide. As expected we did not have space for anything else after struggling to finish our ramen. We also talked to the waitress at payment and asked her what the ton of Japanese worded notices on the wall were. For example, if you come in between 630-8 or something like that, you get free rice. Apparently a lot of Japanese people have rice with their ramen. (talk about carbo overload). And we saw a notice in english where you could like TRIPLE the order of your ramen for like $4 or something like that and we’re like does anybody even do that? And the waitress said they had this regular customer who would do that and finish everything. That’s crazy man. The waitress told us some things (not in their already extensively worded menu) were only pasted in Japanese on the wall, for example, boiled gyoza instead of fried. So hey, now you know. She also showed us how the thin ramen and medium ramen actually looked like when I asked if she had like pictures or something.

For the ladies, as mentioned by previous reviewers, there have this special madame sinjiro (I think its called that) set and basically you pay the same price but you get half the noodles, same amount of ingredients and either an ice cream or a drink. My partner said he wanted to do this the next time he came and im like dude, you cant. Only I can.

While we were there were 2 other couples (Japanese speaking) and a Japanese banker type dude who sat at the counter and read comic books while eating his giant bowl of ramen. So I think if the resident Japanese population in singapore eat here, surely it must be of some standard. Service was okay, it wasn’t exactly a busy night for them, but they were polite and prompt enough.

I would like to go back though because I think it makes for a good meal. And I am very interested to find out how their thinner ramen versions taste like - the thick ramen doesn’t quite cut it with us. I am also quite looking forward to trying other things on their menu, but honestly I think you just have a bowl of ramen and you cant eat anything else already.

20 SEPT 2008

Decided to revisit Menya Shinchan. This time round, we brought our aunt and uncle along for this meal. Me and wifey approached with a specific ordering strategy: and that is to order a bowl of Spicy version of their Mazesoba Japanese dry noodle ($13.00), and opt for the citibank 'extra noodle' promotion to share. On top of that, we also ordered their pan-fried gyoza ($5.00). My aunt & uncle being first-timer, decided to 'play-safe' and ordered exactly as we did. The staff countered with: "You need 2 citibank cards for 2 citibank promotions", and that was exactly what we had. For me and wifey, we also ordered their flavored eggs ($2.00). The staff automatically brought around two extra bowls and spoon without us having to ask. I really liked this kind of initiative!

The two noodles came first... and my aunt's jaw practically hit the table. "Wow so big" was her response. Diving into the main monstrous Mazesoba, my aunt got for herself a smaller bowl of Mazesoba (see picture). However, don't be fooled by the smaller bowl... there were alot of noodles in it! All of us dug in and truely enjoyed the Mazesoba. This time round, the spice level was a little higher compared to my last visit. Alas, their flavored egg was a tad disappointing. I guess my expectation was too high for what they charged. Moreover, I expected the yolk to be runny... Barely a tenth of the way into our noodles, the appealing gyoza came, and it tasted as nice as it looked... Simply SUPERB!! The previous reviewer "Cynthia Koh" had the gyoza spot on.

I KNOW I will be back again. I just hope I can steer away from ordering their delicious Spicy Mazesoba and actually get to try something else!! I know I will definitely order their gyoza everytime I dine here! Anyway, for the 4 of us, the total bill came to $41, paid using 2 citibank cards for the two citibank 'extra noodle' promotion.

(Ratings amended to my previous review on this place)

wat a great little place!!! never knew there's an authentic ramen joint at robertson walk!! well since it's hidden in a little corner..can't really blame people for not knowing rite? hehe.... typical authentic ramen joint decor n to fully experience it .. we took e counter seats!

menu is actually pretty confusing since mostly r in jap and e english version is a little huh??? but instead of asking e waitresses...we decided to b adventurous n juz pick anything we fancy! we had e shoyu pork mayu ramen ($12) which i was pretty shocked when e bowl came! it's BLACK!! haha i didn't know wat to expect but definitely not black! it's looks totally not appertizing (me tinking of typical milky shoyu soup la..) and it looks oily (yes e layer of oil is damn obvious).. but boy was i excited to dig in!!

e soup is heavenly!! okie not really but it's fantastic!!! now tat i know it's actually black sesame and garlic oil i can relax a little and go ahhh.. despite e appearance... it actually dun taste oily nor heavy.. in fact it tasted quite light!! *surprised!* i won't say it's bland coz it is so not but it's actually full of flavour.. i likey very much n slurp it all up to e very last drop!!

ok unlike u guys.. e waitress din ask us wat kinda noodles or wat thickness we want so we juz ate watever noodles they gave us but watever la ... e ramen soup noodles r kinda skinny like mee kia.. it's smooth and tasty but coz it's so thin.. can't really get e "bite" out of it n harder to do e noisy slurp...e stewed egg ($2 for extra portion) is kinda disappointing though.. it small and it's not as runny as i would've liked.. but e char siew on e other hand is great! e fats r at e right places and hence it's e "melt in ya mouth" kinda char siew!! i lurvve it! e other place with such char siew is baikohken!

we also had e dipping noodles with double hot ($15).. no idea wat izzit so decided to give it a try! we also took e citibank promo of extra noodles n boy with so much ramen!! my bf went "ohoh" but haha we ( i mean he) did finished everything in e end! e dry noodles r thicker than e soup ones n had a better "bite" n more Q.. e dipping sauce is 2 bowls of red red red soup that looks potent! i wouldn't say it's great coz e sauce is pretty much juz spicy.. can't really taste e flavours so advise is to take e other choices of shio miso or shio instead of e hot double..we also took e dry noodles n dump it in e shoyo soup coz e soup is so good!

we also had e gyoza ($5) and OMG!! it's FABULOUS!! it's big with delicious fillings and it's pan fried fantastically! i did review e ones from santouka baikohken ken's and ohsho.. n although oni santouka's is good.. i tink menya's one is great! way way better!! santouka's r smaller n lightly pan-fried.. menya's ones r bigger and more heavily pan-fried hence u can really taste e crispiness outside! with e tender n yummy fillings inside.. this is WOW! best gyozas!!

overall crayon shinchan i mean menya shinchan (okie haha i juz can't get xiao xin out of head!) is a great authentic ramen joint.. e shoyu pork mayu ramen is truly yummy (i like shoyu!) and e gyoza is wonderous!! would skip e dippin noodles but would try e shinjiro and mazesoba e next time!