Marutama Ramen recently opened and people have been talking about this place quite a lot. It’s located on the first floor of what looks like a personal home. I wonder if the owners live upstairs. Anyways, it’s pretty hidden, so you won’t see many other restaurants nearby on this street.
When we arrived, we luckily got a seat right away. The interior is full of wooden furniture and there is a long communal table on one side. There is a also a bar area if you want to see how your ramen is cooked.
Marutama “Tamago Ra-Men”
This is their number 1 best seller. Inside is a slice of cha-shu, seaweed, and a soft-boiled flavoured egg. What makes Marutama extremely different from other ramen shops is their ultimate richly textured cloudy chicken soup. Yes, that is what they call their soup. So instead of using pork bone, they use a chicken soup base. The soup is extracted entirely from chicken, so at first, you will think it tastes quite odd. The soup definitely isn’t as strong as pork-bone based soups and I felt that it also wasn’t as oily. The seaweed is a Aosa Seaweed, which gives it an ocean flavour. It’s more like kelp so it brings a balance of salt to your soup. Extremely unique flavour, and it’s hard to describe until you have tried.
Here is the soft boiled egg broken up. You can see that the yolk is half cooked, so it is golden yellow and has a jelly like consistency. The egg was extremely delicious and cooked to perfection. Although you only get one piece of cha-shu, it was extremely delicious and melted in your mouth.
They also give you some fried garlic that you can add to your ramen for more flavour. For drinks, they serve you a cold tea, which is similar to the ones at Korean restaurants.
All in all, this is definitely a different ramen experience. I personally enjoyed it, but K still thinks the traditional porkbone soup is better. Also, the prices here are quite expensive. The Tamago Ra-Men was 10.50, and many of them were beyond this price if you wanted extra ingredients. However, you do get full from one bowl, and they also offer additional ramen for a small price. There were people waiting when we left as well, so I believe it gets packed the later you go.