Sapporo Ramen Miharu 美春

tokusen ramen @ sapporo ramen miharu
Originally uploaded by varf.

As it happens, last Sunday's 1pm episode of Japan Hour was all about Japanese ramen, which got us (brother, J and I) all fired up to get some for ourselves. So we dragged my dad (and Ethan of course, by default) off to Sapporo Ramen Miharu 美春 at the Gallery Hotel.

Miharu is one of those places that's been on my to-try list for a while. I don't venture into the area very often, and the last time I did it was closed (they rest on Wednesdays). The restaurant was fairly busy even at 2:30pm on a Sunday afternoon, but we managed to get a table for four fairly quickly, outside.

After perusing the menu for a minute, and with this being our first time there, it was pretty unanimous that we should try their default speciality: the tokusen ramen, $12.50. For another two dollars, the waitress explained, we could make that a large serving - one and a half portions of noodles. We eventually passed on that option (we were pretty hungry by then!) and ordered four bowls of tokusen ramen miso; one with extra cha siu (+$4) for Chris, and two with extra corn (+$1 each) for J and myself.

The extra corn turned out to be a mistake, and we were lucky that we passed on the upsize option, because the bowls were huge!

(Reminded me of one episode of Prince of Tennis that I watched recently, where Ryoma and Momoshiro were tricked into eating progressively larger portions of ramen in a winners-eat-free-losers-pay-double challenge by a sneaky restaurant owner.)

Some friends poke fun at me for being a Japanese food snob, at least in the context of not being Japanese, but I haven't had a lot of experience with ramen so I don't have a standard to go by yet (Ajisen doesn't count, yecch. Tenkaippin which I tried in Osaka, now, that was nice despite being a chain).

Anyhow, the noodles were okay, but the soup was a bit oily and the miso flavour not very distinctive. Honestly, it wasn't bad overall - it just wasn't very impressive. No complaints about the serving size though!

Would I go back for more? Probably not in a while, at least not until I get to try some other recommended alternatives like Ramen Ramen, or Noodle House Ken. Somehow I just don't see myself turning into a ramen fanatic any time soon.

Sapporo Ramen Miharu
76 Robertson Quay #01-11
Gallery Hotel
Tel: 6733 8464
Open 12-3pm, 6-10pm, closed on Wednesdays.