Tonkotsu ramen ($7.80) @ Akazuki Ramen, Amoy Street Food Centre!
Akazuki Ramen at Amoy Street Food Centre: tonkotsu ramen, $7.80. A creamy pork bone broth with chashu, a jammy ajitama, kikurage and a dollop of chilli paste.
Tonkotsu ramen from Akazuki Ramen at Amoy Street Food Centre, $7.80. ππ
What we had ($7.80):
- Tonkotsu ramen, $7.80
Akazuki is at stall #01-49 in Amoy Street Food Centre on Maxwell Road, which has quietly become one of the best places in town to eat Japanese food at hawker prices. At $7.80 a bowl you are paying about half what a shop in a mall would charge, which is the whole appeal.
The broth was a creamy tonkotsu, milky and opaque with that slightly sticky mouthfeel you get when pork bones have been cooked down hard. Rich without being punishing, and there was enough of it that the noodles stayed submerged to the end.
Underneath were thin, straight noodles, the Hakata style that suits this kind of broth, cooked with a bit of bite left in them.
On top, three slices of chashu with browned, caramelised edges, soft enough to break with chopsticks. Beside them a halved ajitama, the marinated soft-boiled egg, its yolk still bright orange and jammy in the middle, which is the detail cheap ramen usually gets wrong. Then shreds of kikurage (black fungus) for crunch, a scatter of spring onion, and a dollop of red chilli paste on the side of the bowl.
That chilli paste is worth stirring in gradually. Left as a dollop it lets you dial the heat up bowl by bowl instead of committing at the start.
For under eight dollars in the CBD, a bowl this complete is a good deal.
Overall: 4 / 5. πππΌ Creamy tonkotsu, tender chashu and a properly jammy egg, at hawker prices. Would re-order.
