Tampopo Part I: The Ramen - Net voted best. Really the best?

The hunt for best ramen in Singapore continues with Tampopo, a must try since it's hungrygowhere's voted best thus far.

I was stunned to see the results, because I expected Ippudo at Mandarin Gallery to garner the most votes after reading Daniel's Blog, and having tried it myself. My own review of Ippudo on hungrygowhere.com is here. For a summary, yes, I find it overrated and no need for a queue, HOWEVER, I was very satisfied with the quality and taste of the food as I've rated.

My quest at Tampopo was really to find out if it is truly better or if the votes are unfairly swayed for whatever reason (maybe people just wanted to win the top prize from Standard Chartered Bank, or it could be internal voting for all we know).

Prior to my visit, I already had an inkling of what I would taste since there are truthful feedback on the post from ieatishootipost. I did not go with high expectations just to make sure I don't get disappointed the way I got with Ippudo, and thereby weeding out possible bias while making room for myself to be impressed. (Well, I rated their food very good despite the disappointment.)

Tampopo

Location

This place was easy to find as it is the Level 1 tenant at Liang Court, which is a mall famous for great food. The space is also overwhelmingly big and therefore has enough wall area of huge signs/posters.

Huge wall area.

Tampopo

Setting & Ambience

Being an enclosed ground floor space, this didn't have the location advantage to give a good view that Santouka has. It doesn't matters that much to me, since I believe there is a time and place for every setting.

First step into the restaurant gave me a slight wow due to the size and extreme spaciousness. Lighting is pretty much the same as many other Japanese restaurants, that dark room with hanging lights thing. I don't know why, but you'd find similar backdrops in Sushi Tei Ang Mo Kio branch, Ippudo, and Watami. Or perhaps, it's just a popular interior design right now... ...

Although so, I do like these dark settings because it makes the meal more romantic by eliminating your sense of time, and it somehow allows extremely good photos to be taken. You can really forget whether it's day or night in places like these. Trust me, especially if the food is good, you wouldn't want to leave.

Service

Service is very good throughout as they are obviously well-staffed. They have to be with a gigantic restaurant by today's standard, because of the space constraints and land pricing in Singapore.

They always make it a point to take note of me, gave me time to look through the menu, and came up at the right moment.

Table setting. Cup of hot tea served almost immediately.

Even while going about the daily chores, such as packing the chopsticks in the paper wrapper, the waitress mainly on duty made sure she sat in a position that she would not miss me if I looked up and signal.

Every dish was set down with an "enjoy your meal", and when I asked for takeaway, it was gladly done, and the waitress even asked if I wanted takeaway for my ramen even though I didn't ask for it. I appreciate the extra consideration, as good service is few and far between in modern day Singapore.

Rating: 4.75/5
I am taking away marks for not so authentic way, as in Japanese service, such as that you can find at Watami Singapore. But I was very much impressed, and this is probably one of the best you can find in mass market restaurants. Ippudo, being slightly more upmarket, doesn't even comes quite close.

Food

I ordered the "biggest" bowl of ramen on the menu, the Black Pig Ramen with Dragon Ball, which even has poster cards of it hanging from the ceiling as if you're in MacDonalds. LOL. A bit strange for a restaurant. But okay, I am not complaining since it does serves its purpose of giving new patrons like me an idea of what to order.

I was sufficiently curious about Dragon Ball to go for it although I did detect gimmick in it. Dragon Ball is my childhood favourite comic series, and it has also spun-off a movie by the Westerners! Furthermore, the movie is good! hahahaha.

I also ordered some things that I more often than not use as benchmarks for a Japanese restaurants, since Tampopo is not a dedicated ramen restaurant. And these items were Light Cheese Chiffon Cake, Red Bean Green Tea Ice Cream, Pan-fried Gyoza, and Salmon Sashimi Sushi.

I will start of with the ramen since that's what this post should be about. Although I will eventually evaluate Tampopo as a whole restaurant like I have done for all the previous posts. Do just keep your eye on the ramen if you are also on the search for best ramen.

Ramen

Dragon Ball
I tested the Dragon Ball first, since the bowl of ramen costs more if you choose to add this.

The ball is huge, like the size of a large egg, except round, or a good big scoop of Haagen Dazs ice cream. Good impression since it costs $1 more. Can't be paying for a quail egg size right, it's not fish roe or foie gras.

Taste is okay. It's not those super tasty pork some people might like. So if you are looking for pork taste, perhaps not this. However, based on the lack of fats and salt, I'd actually qualify this minced meat ball as good. Reason being, you are cheated if you are sold more than 50% fats. Even Bak Kut Teh lovers and Vinegar-ed Pig Leg lovers would agree that the meat needs to has meat rather than just bone coated with fats or fats in sour black sauce.

This entire issue of being sold fats deserves a separate post, which I will do as soon as possible.

Texture wise, the meat ball is also rather firm, okay, in fact very firm, yet highly breakable with your teeth. Not hard, just firm.

Overall, this is a good meat ball that for meat ball lovers, you might just want to try. You might also want to try if your quest is to look for the best meat ball in Singapore. Yet due to the lack of real taste, as in unique taste that can make your eyes gleam, I do not see the need for the mass market to pay for it. Based on this, I find the entire Dragon Ball and poster card on the ceiling a gimmick. Don't fall for it, since you wouldn't be missing out any great taste if your Black Pig Ramen comes without it.


Rating: 3.5/5
Marks given because I don't want to kill the person who in the kitchen who makes this, and on second thought, it does makes my photos of Black Pig Ramen quite a lot better. Added element. lol. Moreover, it was really just a dollar more, not like $2.50, which people would crazily pay for tiny macarons, yeah?

Soup
Okay, the disappointment kicks in from here. In the course of eating and taking picture of Dragon Ball, I accidentally tasted some soup, and my face changed immediately.

What would you say if a bowl of ramen tasted like instant noodles from any brand you can make at home?

I don't know about you, but I don't want to pay for overly-seasoned instant noodles!! I swear this tastes like what you get when you pour the whole packet of that seasoning in. Extremely salty as layerless.

I would definitely forgive the salt and give credit for layer in flavour like I did with Santouka, whose soup was salty but kept reminding me of miso, and made me take more scoops to find the secret. In culinary terms, the Chinese know it as 层次感. It is detectable when you put something into your mouth, first get an initial taste, then another, and another, and some main taste slowly creeps in, even leaving what is called an aftertaste at the back of your throat after swallowing, much like a good cup of kopi for the Chinese or fine wine and chocolate for the Westerners.

Rating: 0/5
Fails miserably, since I wouldn't even make the mistake of pouring in all the seasoning for my instant noodles. I can't stomach it.

Noodles
The noodle sealed the impression that this bowl of ramen is instant noodles.

It was not Q. It isn't bad. Not overly soaked and squishy or undercooked and hard. It breaks easily with a bite. But that's it. It doesn't have the resistance.

The reason why I emphasize so much on Q (spring or bounce) is because even people who make instant noodles for themselves to eat at home ask that of themselves.

The first time I came across this term was 5 years ago, when a friend reviewed to me that she can make the noodles Q by dipping it in cold water, hot water then cold water again, right after it has been cooked in the boiling water. So you see, if a normal person bothers to go through these steps to make instant noodles at home, what excuse does it gives restaurants? Unless of course, one claims that the cook doesn't knows of such thing as Q noodles.

Rating: 3/5
Good just bite and break noodles, but lack that bounce that I would like to be paying for. I have also given a little bit more marks since Tampopo is not a dedicated ramen restaurant.

Pork
I am glad to say that the pork did not disappoint. =)

I couldn't taste if this is really black pig or white pig or what, but the slices of pork I could scoop up from underneath was quite a lot, and every piece was delightfully soft and tender. This is an art that hawkers somehow fail to grasp.

Yet, the taste was lacking. Great texture and feel in the mouth, but there was no real pork taste or any unique seasoning taste. Just good feel pork. All I ask for is that I can at least tell it's pork rather than super tender piece of flour or something.


Rating: 3.8/5

Overall Ramen Rating: 2.55/5
Based on a pass and fail system that I used for commenting on ieatishootipost, I actually failed this, since everything fails from the purely ramen point of view. Like I wrote there, as a ramen, fail, as a bowl of instant noodles, barely pass. I have gotten over an initial disappointment (even though I came with not much expectations!), and use a rating system instead, which gives credit to things like the person cooking, how something would add looks to the dish etc. So I guess, this rating system goes in line with it being an extremely normal bowl of noodles which you can cook at home, rather than a contender for Top 10 ramen in Singapore.

I tried, and I cannot find a reason for those who haven't visited Tampopo to try their ramen. =( Considering the large variety of food in the much, much more accessible Orchard Belt, and a lot, a lot that are nice, I really don't want to make people run down to Liang Court for something that can be left to the last to try.

(To be continued... ...)