Ramen Dining Keisuke Tokyo and Gyoza King

It was way past lunch time but my dining companion and I had not eaten. Since it was a weekend, we were surprised to find an almost empty Ramen Dining Keisuke Tokyo on the 2nd floor of Suntec City. This is by chef-owner Keisuke Takeda who, with 100% of sales generated at Ramen Keisuke Tonkotsu King last Friday, purchased and donated community notice boards to Tanjong Pagar housing estates as he found some of them too small or damaged. As part of its 3rd anniversary celebration, 350 bowls of ramen were sold at a thank you price of $5 each and bottles of water were distributed to customers queuing in the hot weather. Having tried the pork bone broth at Orchid Hotel's Tonkotsu King as well as the chicken-based soup at 100AM's Ramen Keisuke Tori King, I decided to order the crab stock ramen with egg at Keisuke Tokyo. Relocated from Millenia Walk, this 75-seater restaurant has a private dining room and is the largest in Singapore.

Ramen Keisuke Tonkotsu King

Selected by Timeout's critic as 2012 Singapore Best Ramen Bowl is Ramen Keisuke Tonkotsu King by chef-owner Keisuke Takeda, Tokyo's Ramen King 2011 out of about 30,000 ramen chefs. The cosy little place at a corner of Orchid Hotel is his 2nd restaurant in Singapore after Ramen Dining Keisuke Tokyo at Parco Marina Bay and within walking distance from the 3rd, Ramen Keisuke Tori King. With the same simple menu, a queue of people sitting on stools outside and familiar-looking seat cushions in different colours against lots of wood. Similarly, on the table were complimentary hard-boiled eggs and sweet crunchy beansprouts with a tinge of spice as well as condiments and tissue paper. Chose Original over the Black Spicy and Red (instead of Green) Spicy soup with all toppings, less oil and no spring onions. I checked the boxes for normal soup and noodle texture on the order chit, and was surprised to see the option to exclude pork chasyu.

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.