Ramen Keisuke Tori King

Chef-owner Keisuke Takeda, who was crowned Tokyo's Ramen King 2011 out of about 30,000 ramen chefs, opened his 3rd restaurant in Singapore within walking distance from the 2nd. The former offers Japanese ramen in chicken-based soup whereas the latter, Ramen Keisuke Tonkotsu King at Orchid Hotel, uses the traditional and more popular pork bone broth. In fact, no two Keisuke's outlets (including the 15 in Japan) offer the same bespoke and signature ramen. For example, Ramen Dining Keisuke Tokyo at Parco Marina Bay started with his signature prawn broth ramen but the menu now focuses on pork and crab flavoured ones. Located on the 3rd floor of revamped 100AM (formerly known as Amara Shopping Centre), Ramen Keisuke Tori King is the 1st in his empire to serve chicken broth ramen. Just like Marukin Ramen at Scotts Square, and Marutama Ramen at Central and Liang Court.

There were a few people in the queue when I dropped by for late lunch on a weekday. A simple menu to choose the soup (Original, Black Spicy and Green Spicy), toppings and customisation such as firmness of noodles, amount of oil and exclusion of black fungus, spring onions and shallots. Ordered the original with all toppings, and chose authentic Japan taste for the soup and noodles with less chicken oil. Cold water and beansprouts, black and white sesame seeds as well as spicy sauce were promptly served. On the table were complimentary hard-boiled eggs, tissue paper and condiments like chilli powder and bonito flakes just to name a few. Different countries' flags and seat cushions in various designs added colour to the neutral palette – lots of wood against cement floor, with old posters and comic pages on the walls to give the cosy place an old world charm.

Sweet and crunchy beansprouts with a tinge of spice reminded me of banchan, small dishes of food served along with cooked rice in Korean cuisine. Good as an appetiser while waiting for food to arrive, except mine was already in front of me. Yes, it was that fast. Loved how the freshly ground sesame seeds added a nice aroma to the rich and creamy chicken concoction boiled with chicken bones and feet, Japanese seaweed and vegetables for hours to extract their individual flavours. Complementing the yummy but a tad salty soup is specially made ramen, neither Hakata straight and thin nor Sapporo chewy and curly, done just right and good enough on its own. Hurriedly ate the big seaweed as I like it crunchy and not soaked. Nothing to fault on the perfectly soft-boiled egg and pork loin, which was neither too hard nor fat, though would have preferred more black fungus.

While the grilled chicken thigh and drumstick combo simmered and submerged in premium soy stock overnight looked and tasted good, could not say the same for its texture. It is a pity there is no option to have only pork loin and soft-boiled egg as toppings since the portion was too filling anyway. Its soft and tender meat, easily torn from the bone using a pair of chopsticks, went well with the spicy sauce that was also sweet and tangy at the same time. I like that the only specially imported premium ingredients are kombu from Hidaka, Hokkaido and premium soy sauce from Japan with the rest locally sourced as Keisuke believes a professional chef should be able to make even ordinary ingredients sing. Thumbs up! Whether or not the three Japanese chefs permanently stationed here are sufficient to ensure its continued quality control, time (and the queue) will tell.