Ramenplay

Well then. This is about ramen. Delicious noodly ramen. I have always been a noodle kid, long as I can remember. My mom tells me I was a difficult child to deal with regard to noodles, especially when I was in London. See my parents were there on a business trip and they couldn't just leave little wee me back in Singapore, being 1 1/2 or so, so they brought me along. Turns out all I wanted to eat was noodles. Noodles for breakfast. Noodles for lunch. Noodles for dinner. One day mom tried something different.

'Would you like an egg today? How about an egg instead.'

'Yes ok. Egg.'

She produced an egg. Lord knows from where.

'Here's your egg!'

'No egg! Noodles!'

Exasperating? I can only imagine.

Onto the ramen. 313 was horribly busy and my dad and I were in no mood to queue up for anything. Frankly I was actually looking forward to Marche but the line was just monstrous. So I'm like alright there's a ramen place downstairs I haven't tried yet, how about that one. Now the only thing I know about ramenplay is that it's a breadtalk related place and that the prices are pretty cheap for ramen. So, open mind, open tastebuds!

I went for the tonkatsu ramen, 5 slices of cha shu and an iced green tea. Dad wasn't feeling particularly hungry so just an ice tea for him too.

Here is my ramen! It came with my 5 slices of roast pork, half an egg, some shreds of.. um.. you know I never figured out what those black chewy strands are. I think it's a fungus. A tasty, tasty fungus. And a sheet of nori. If you notice, there is no nori in the photo. That's because I ate it. And went oh shit I haven't taken the photo. So it is a nori-less ramen.

The noodles were nice and kinda springy, though at times they felt like they were losing their al dente and going over to the al mushy side. The pork slices were painfully, painfully thin. And they weren't particularly fantastic either. The fat was tasty but not melt in the mouth omg I can't stop eating it good. Also the egg, despite the menu saying it would be deliciously soft and runny... no. It was softish, yes, but the yolk definitely wasn't going anywhere and the base of it had already begun to develop a solid form. Bad egg, bad.

Then the broth. Supposedly boiled for what, 12 hours? All the good places say it's boiled for 12 hours. This tasted so thin and so lacking in character, I wondered if they even got to half of the number of hours they claimed. I have to admit it was tasty, but it was too thin for me to consider a real tonkatsu ramen broth. I like the good thick stuff, that'll kill you in the end but is oh so tasty with oil floating in delicate pools on the surface of the soup. Ah that's the good stuff.

Oh ramenplay, what do I do with you. You feel like the student's ramen. A cheaper alternative to the better ramen out there in the world. And frankly, costing $13.80, I'd rather throw in a couple more bucks for something better. But if you're a poor student, the $9.80 gets you the tonkatsu ramen with 2 slices of pork and frankly if I were still a student, that's probably all I could afford too.

Maybe if you wanna take your girl/boyfriend out for a date and eat ramen, this is it, I don't know but frankly if you're big enough to be earning real money, you should be graduating out of eating the ramen here. Also note, I've only spoken about the ramen, the appetizers and other foods could be tons better for all I know, I certainly didn't try any.