Thursday, March 26, 2015

Kinguemon (Osaka-shi, Chuo-ku)

金久右衛門 (道頓堀店)
きんぐえもん
Kinguemon

Naniwa Black: 16 / 20
(なにわブラック)

Osaka Black: 16 / 20
(大阪ブラック)

Black shoyu ramen: 16 / 20
(黒醤油ラーメン)

Red shoyu ramen: 15 / 20
(紅醤油ラーメン)

A symbol of Osaka, Kinguemon was the very first ramen of this blog! The visit of my family was the perfect occasion to make them discover the local 'Takaida-kei' dark shoyu and try many variants - this time at the Namba shop. I ordered the Naniwa ramen, my sister the Osaka ramen, my father the black ramen, and my mother the red ramen - in decreasing order of strength in taste. So we could really try the different flavors crescendo! But let’s review first the stronger one, the Naniwa black ramen.


Broth: The Naniwa broth is a bit special compared to the other one: you get a very simple shio broth (quite tasteless, I must say - if that's the gold ramen, I would stay clear of it!) BUT there is a big chunk of shoyu-oyster-clam-niboshi tare floating in the middle, that you can mix for getting the real deal. Delicious!

Noodles: You can chose between thin and large noodles - the former are recommended for the gold and red ramen, and the latter for the three black versions. I went with the recommendation - the large noodles were good, although not exceptional.

Meat: Some very crumbly chashu, quite pleasant.

Egg: You get a whole ajitama with a very liquid yolk - too liquid for a shoyu ramen, in my opinion. The white part was a bit too soft and not enough infused in the spice and shoyu mix.

Toppings: Some menma, quite soft and mild - not so interesting.

How did the other bowls fare?



The black ramen and Osaka ramen were very similar - even when tasting them side by side it was difficult to convince myself that the Osaka ramen was stronger. The Naniwa, in comparison, had the same shoyu strongness but a distinct additional seafood taste that slightly masked the strong pungency of all the black broths.


The red one was milder, obviously, but had some pleasant spice notes - I could swear I tasted some cinammon!

So, overall, all were very good - I slightly prefer the strong black shoyu taste than the red one, but that’s more a question of personal preference. There was little consistency in the menma cooking - very soft in the Naniwa and the shoyu black, and quite tough in the Osaka black and the red shoyu. And finally, I strongly preferred the large noodles over the thin ones - I would order the former even with the lighter version of their soup (I’ve rated all these ramen as if they had larger noodles - with thinner noodles, they would lose one point). Anyway, as you can see, all of us loved them!


More info on ramendb.

Other reviews: Friends in Ramen, Ramen Adventures, Sukimatime, Philoramen

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