United Ramen, 26th September

You don’t need me to tell you noodles are everywhere right now, what with the Shoryus and Tonkotsus (not to mention Phos), and London has just got a couple new ones – Kanada-Ya and United Ramen. I was particularly drawn to United Ramen because they were doing noodle soups and shaking it up a little by serving several versions, influenced by diferent parts of the world. So they had a Yankee Doodle noodle soup with pulled chicken and sweetcorn, and they have a British-inspired version on the weekends – basically a Sunday roast in soup version, complete with little Yorkshire puddings. (Not too sure about that one if I’m honest.)

So payday rolled around and I decided to treat Stephen and I to a quick dinner at United Ramen.

You walk in to a room that kind of reminded me of  a children's nursery - chunky, funky furnishings in bright, bold colours of orange and purple. One of my favourite colour combinations. The place has personality, though one suspects the furnishings aren’t of the highest quality. Our table was incredibly rickety and had to have a door stop put under one side to stop it rocking about.

The crockery is beautiful, in not many other places have I so admired the vessel my soup was brought in. As with most places, they had condiments on the side: chilli oil, a chilli powder, and sesame in little grinders which didn't seem to work.

I chose the Chinese-inspired spicy sichuan tantanmen, which really had no real kick to it, though a bit of chilli oil soon perked it up so that my nose was sniffing by the end of the meal. It came with minced pork sitting on top, which, though quite chunky to begin with, soon disintegrated into my broth giving it a mushy, thick texture that I didn't really like! Otherwise, before that happened the flavour was quite nice, and fairly light. The ‘thick’ noodles, were not that big, not as sizeable as udon noodles, which was great, as I don't like them too thick.

One of the best things about ramen is the soy egg, in my opinion. But not here. What a woeful specimen this ovum was - no soy flavour – the egg itself didn’t even look marinated, and it was small, very flabby and undercooked as well as half crushed. Totally disappointing.

Stephen had the Chashu Pork with thick noodles (Japanese inspired) and, without meaning to sound so cutting, said it was the worst ramen soup he’d had. He didn’t mean it was awful, he just meant it wasn’t as good as at other places. And I have to agree with him. I like all the different influences they have here, which is why I wanted to come so much, but the novelty of that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. There are a lot of places doing it better.

We had some kimchi on the side (a generous portion for 50p!) and also some pork gyoza which were both tasty enough.

Find the menu and more reviews on Zomato.

Tonkotsu, 23rd November

I have never tasted anything that tastes so porky, other than pork, in my life. It was a like a gustatory illusion –  you get all of the taste that something your mind and tongue expect to be fleshy meat, yet the texture is completely wrong. Your brain finds it hard to compute. It's almost like something the modern real-life Willy Wonka - Heston Blumenthal - would conjure up. I definitely had a case of food envy when I’d had a mouthful of that - the tonkotsu a sea-salt based broth flavoured with pork bones with a mildly disconcerting appearance, looking a little milky, not clear like I am used to from pho, for example. 

However, after getting through my Tokyo ramen, a lighter, soy sauce-based dish, I did wonder if maybe such a rich, deeply flavoured broth would be a little hard to finish. Stephen said that he felt that way as well, so perhaps my choice with pork and chicken was the better option after all.

Either way, they were both very tasty, and the meat inside was as flavoursome as you would expect of something that had imparted such flavour to its surrounding liquid. The unexpected highlight, and I can’t really believe I’m writing this, was the ‘seasoned egg’. Now, I’m a big fan of eggs, in almost any form, but they're not the sort of thing you normally get taken aback by. An egg’s an egg’s an egg. Unless it’s a seasoned egg, in which case it is amazing! They are marinated in soy overnight, which gives them a pleasingly salty taste and unusually deep flavour.

Along with your bowl of noodles you have the option of ordering more noodles (given how much you get, this seems completely unnecessary), a garlic shot (I was tempted, but we were going out drinking after and I thought I’d spare my friends the after-effects) or another half season egg. Definitely worth getting them to pop another one of these fellas into your pot.

We turned up at a little past six. I thought we’d get a seat but was a little anxious we might have to wait a while. It was surprisingly empty, considering I feel like it hasn’t been around that long. We chose two seats at the ‘bar’ which was right in front of the kitchen area.

There are only three choices – two meaty ones and one veggie, so naturally Stephen and I had one each. As I said, he had the tonkotsu, for which the restaurant is named and I had what was called Tokyo Ramen. We were hoping that one of them was going to be the spicy one we had read about but I guess the menu changes every now and again. The noodles were the thin kind, which I like, and were topped with big slices of fatty, ever so delicious, pork belly. Pork belly is always good but this seemed to be extrarich in flavour, perhaps soaking up some of the meatiness from the very broth it was sitting in. Highly satisfying.

They’re a little on the pricey side for noodles - a bowl of pho down the road at Nam will only set you back £6.50 whereas these are £11 and £9 respectively - but I don’t mind paying £15 for my dinner, especially when that includes an alcoholic beverage. They serve quite a good selection of beers – Stephen went for the 8-ball, loving snooker as he does, and I had a glass of rose wine. It was actually a very nice rose, not at all too sweet and better than the one I then had in the pub later. 

You can probably take your time over a meal here, as they have starters and sides and seem happy enough for you to order more but we just wanted something hot, tasty and filling before our night’s revelry and Tonkotsu met all three criteria. They do gyoza and something called Kara age chicken which sounded very nice (garlic and ginger - can’t go wrong) so they’re not just a one-trick pony. Although I suppose they could do these very badly, in which case they would be, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Our waitresses were all very friendly, even if one was slightly barmy – they seemed to be having a good time among themselves anyway! 

Next time they put that spicy broth back on the menu, I'm there, going heavy on the seasoned egg and putting their gyoza to the test!





Find the menu & restaurant information on Zomato