Everyone flocks to Tian Tian Chicken Rice when they’re at Maxwell Food Centre, but I’m going to let you in on an insider secret that might make you ditch the famous Chicken Rice – Ramen Taisho.
Located diagonally across from Tian Tian Chicken Rice, Ramen Taisho serves up authentic, restaurant-quality Ramen at a very affordable price.
Ramen Taisho is run by a Singaporean couple who aim to provide authentic Japanese cuisine to the locals without burning a hole in pockets. They have a relatively small menu with only three renditions of Tonkotsu Ramen, but quality over quantity, right?
We ordered the Chashu Ramen ($8.80) and the Ajitama Ramen ($7.80) for lunch. We did not try the Standard Ramen ($6.80) because it’s exactly the same as the Ajitama Ramen, but without the lava egg.
The smell of the fragrant pork-bone broth immediately hit our noses when the ramen arrived, and we were greeted with a bowl that looked exactly like what you would get at a restaurant.
The ramen comes with thin noodles, a piece of pork chashu, roasted seaweed, bamboo shoots, lava egg and scallions.
The first order of business with ramen is to always taste the broth before eating. The owners told us that the broth was boiled with pork bones over a long period of time, and this arduous process definitely paid off.
The broth was thick and filled with umami flavour, and we couldn’t stop slurping everything up.
Lava egg is always my favourite part of ramen, and the ones here did not disappoint. Executed perfectly, the egg mixed with the thin noodles was a great combination of textures.
The noodles served here are the thin version, and they were well cooked with a good bite.
I then turned my attention to the protein of this dish. Although there was only one piece of chashu in this bowl of ramen, the slice given was huge.
There was a perfect ratio of fat to lean meat, and the pork was fork-tender. There was great depth to the flavour of the pork, and the meat seemed to have been braised long and slow, elevating the dish.
If you are more of a carnivore, I’d say go for the Chashu Ramen ($8.80) instead. The Chashu Ramen came with three big slices of pork chashu like the one in the Ajitama Ramen earlier.
Just like the Ajitama Ramen, the noodles in this dish were thin and al dente.
The Chashu Ramen also comes with bamboo shoots, but no lava egg. The bamboo shoots added a crunch to the ramen, and the light flavour balanced the heavy broth in between every bite, adding a crunchy texture as well.
As a Ramen lover, I find it difficult to satisfy my cravings sometimes because of the hefty price tags that restaurants place on their food. At only $8.80 for the most expensive bowl, Ramen Taisho definitely serves up bowls of chopsticks-licking-good Ramen.
I’m very sure the next time someone mentions Maxwell Food Centre, this will be the stall that pops into my head.
Expected damage: $6.80 – $8.80 per pax
