Hokkaido Ramen Santouka – Indonesia
Again, Ramen House looks very trend in Jakarta area. After several brand like Hakata Ikkousha, Yamagoya , Marutama, and many other ramen house, now it’s time for Santouka Ramen to rules the ramen domination in Jakarta. Opened in Plaza Indonesia – Jakarta around month of May 2012, Ramen Santouka specializing in Hokkaido style ramen with a total of 55 stores globally in many countries such as USA, Taipei, Singapore, Indonesia, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong.
Hearing the big name triggered me to try Ramen Santouka, and of course I’m getting more excited after I always seeing a quite long queue in front of Santouka Ramen. So last month, I went to Plaza Indonesia just to experience this Hokkaido style ramen with a very high expectation, and of course after hearing the price, my expectation was become higher and higher.
After a quite long queue for about 20 minutes, finally I got my table, a sharing table to be exact. There you will be served with a free-flow iced water (complimentary). For the ramen itself, I order a Charsiu Ramen Miso and Charsiu Ramen Kara Miso, also Gyoza for the starter. Trust me at this level of excitement, waiting is never fun, yet the big name Santouka is also well known for it’s mild, pearl-colored tonkotsu soup, which will took 20hours just for simmering the pork bones before goes to the next level.
So here we go, the promising looks of Charsiu Ramen Miso. One of my rules to try the new foods is to taste the original flavour of the foods without adding any extra seasoning, condiment or what so ever. I didn’t really feel WOW within the first time, guess something’s wrong on the day I visited the Santouka Ramen. Even though the soup was quite rich, but it was too salty, I can’t enjoyed the soup at all, too salty, and taste like too many MSG perhaps? The Charsiu Ramen came with a total 5 slices of pork meat, guess that this is the main reason that the price is quite expensive, and the slices were also quite thick while the taste was just ok.
Move my chopstick and soup spoon to the Kara Miso one, looks tempting. The soup looks red which came from the chilli powder and chilli oil, but the base for this soup is still the same with the Charsiu Ramen. How about the taste? Well, again I found that the taste was almost the same with the Charsiu Ramen Miso before, too salty! I can’t really enjoyed the soup though actually it was quite rich, but I have to say, No Thanks, I will not finished the soup, sorry but I can’t handle it’s saltiness.
At that time, my Gyoza wasn’t served as the first dish, yet it came after two of my ramen, so I tried the Gyoza after I finished the ramen. Looking at the appearance, a bit burned out on the edge, and, again, the taste was quite disappointing as it was just the same like the others, extremely salty!
I guess something’s wrong with my tongue and my mouth that time, but then I figured out that I’m not the only one who feel that the soup and Gyoza were extremely salty, yet a week after, I heard that my friend was also experience the same thing like mine. So, have you tried Santouka Ramen in Plaza Indonesia? Let me know your experience if you have one!
p.s : Both of the Charsiu Ramen and Kara Miso Ramen didn’t come with Komi Tamago (soyu flavoured boiled egg), it’s additional item.
Santouka Ramen Indonesia Plaza Indonesia 5th Floor #E-11 @SantoukaIndo Charsiu Ramen Miso (M) Rp.88.000++ Charsiu Ramen Kara Miso (M) Rp.98.000++ Komi Tamago Rp.10.000++ Pork Gyoza Rp.33.000++ Ocha Rp.13.000++ All prizes are subject to 10% tax and 8% service
Sep 02, 2012 @ 15:37:38
I tried the outlet at Central Mall Spore. Good, but a bit on the salty side. The pork cheeks were fantastic, S$ 19.99. Hakata Ikkousha is still better.