ramen in portland - part 4 中華料理拉麺

A friend met up with me to go try the new ramen place that is in Uwajimaya. We have high hope that it serves half-decent bowls of ramen. I have to admit I am very hard to please and I have yet to be impressed by any that I tried in this country. The decor and presentation of the restaurant looks right, and so is the menu. Usually if the place try to be everything of Japanese it is a sign to avoid. You want to see they serve nothing else but ramen and Gyoza, and drinks.


I order a bowl with chashu 义燒 with shoyu broth and my friend also a bowl with chashu but with shio. The bowls arrive and immediately I found a few things amiss. No half boiled egg. No menma 麺麻. Also missing is a piece or two of toasted nori. The only toppings are few generous sized chashu  义燒 and chopped scallion.

Actually we both saw these missing topping as options each at additional cost. The bowls of ramen are around $10 nominal. We then realize they do this to boot the bill of an order if you want the standard-issued toppings as one can expect from any ramen joints in Japan. I did not like this.

At the time I felt that the broth was quite tasty and full of umami. The chashu is tender with the right consistency and is also quite tasty. The noodles is good, and I think it is likely supplied by Sun, hence decent. Later that afternoon, I had the worst thirst experience that I can remember in recent years. I am normally quite tolerant of MSG, and for me to be this thirsty the broth must had exceeding quantity. No wonder it was a tasty broth.

A week later I decide to spend some time and make myself some ramen as I was unhappy with the missing toppings that I come to expect in a decent bowl. My ramen would be made without shortcuts and my broth does not rely on MSG to boost the taste.

I bought two pieces of whole pork neck bone to make the stock; I didn't take photo of all the other ingredients that I put into the stock; I put pieces of apple form my apple tree

I use whole piece of neck bone because I don't want the broth to be too cloudy. I dislike how most stores would cut them into pieces. To use whole piece of bone you would need a big and wide pot like I use here.

I have not make half-boiled eggs a while now and my timing is off so the eggs were full-boiled

One little secret to make soft-boiled eggs. If you wonder why you have such a hard time shelling the eggs, you likely use eggs that are too fresh. You want eggs that is a few weeks old to make the peeling easy. Also refrain from using the finger nails. Use the flesh of your fingers for clean shelling starting from the air pocket at the big end without digging into the egg white.

freshly toasted nori

this bowl has chashu 义燒 as well as fresh live clams

My bowls of ramen that I make at home are better than any that I can get in this city.

You may notice that there is not much broth in my bowls. As it takes quite a bit of real ingredients to make a quantity of broth, I rather put in the amount that I would empty the bowl instead of a lot for the sake of presentation. The slices of chashu is rather small because I could not get a big piece of pig shoulder at this shop. It had been cut into half the normal size. I did not take photos of the preparation of the chashu.

The only good noodles for ramen that I can get in this town is this frozen one by Sun Noodle. It is quite expensive as it comes with two packs of miso flavored soup base which I don't use. It is intended the next step up from instant ramen. I buy these package just for the two servings of noodles inside. Sun Noodle company sells many types of noodles to ramen restaurants across United States. Unfortunate the company do not sell noodles to retail consumers except in these "convenient" products.

there is MSG in the miso soup packs

the dark bowl makes it very hard to see the slice of toasted nori

Since the boiled eggs are full-boiled, I decide to put them into the juice of the slow-simmered chashu. This makes for delicious and well seasoned hard boiled eggs that one can snack on. I can still use it as the ramen topping.

Making a bowl of authentic ramen is quite involving. However once you make a quantity of the broth, chashu, toasted nori, and boiled eggs you can have many meals of ramen for the whole week. You can prepare many different variation of ramen with creativity. It is very easy to make the common broth flavor - shoyu, shio, miso. Sometimes I like to use western ingredients like butter or sprinkle in some grated Parmesan cheese.

One tip in how to clean cut the soft-boiled egg in halves. Loop the egg lengthwise with a piece of sewing thread and pull. There is no better way.

 A few words on nori and menma 麺麻. I only buy nori that is from Korea or Japan. The good menma 麺麻 that I found should said "Product of Japan". "Processed in Japan" means value-added seasoning done in Japan but with processed bamboo shoot from China. My experience is those have very pronounce foul chemical taste and smell.