Friday, March 13, 2015

Tensonkorin (Kobe-shi, Chuo-ku)

麺屋 天孫降臨
めんや てんそんこうりん
Menya Tensonkourin

Shio tsukemen: 14 / 20

Shio ramen (with egg): 15 / 20
(天降らーめん しお)

Shoyu ramen (with egg): 15 / 20
(天降らーめん しょうゆ)

Mazesoba: 16 / 20

I had tried this restaurant’s excellent reimen during the summer and I definitely wanted to come back to try their other dishes. The visit of my family was the perfect occasion: we ordered the regular (shio) tsukemen, shio ramen, shoyu ramen and mazemen. Basically the whole set! Let’s start with the tsukemen:

 
Broth: This broth suffers from shio tsukemen’s original sin: not enough taste. It was barely thicker than the shio ramen broth (although more salty and concentrated), which is clearly not enough for a tsukemen. Pleasant, but really lacks some taste.

Noodles: Firm, thinner than the regular tsukemen’s noodles (which is a good thing in a shio tsukemen, as the broth does not stick so much), with a square section, and good.

Meat: A thin slice of meat with some pleasant fat, relatively unremarkable though.

Toppings: A few thick menma, quite fibrous and juicy, excellent. Some microgreens and white negi.

Soup wari: You get some cloudy, thin broth - did I perceive some mushroom notes? Mixing it with the broth made the broth thinner than the shio ramen’s.

Let's continue with the shio and shoyu ramen. Can you guess which one is which?


The shio ramen had thinner noodles than the tsukemen, too soft (why don’t they actually use their tsukemen’s noodles? they would also fit in the ramen). The broth was similar but better, relatively thick for a shio broth (somehow intermediate between a shio and a tori paitan), buttery in taste. There were two halves of an ajitama, well-cooked, although not so tasteful. As you can guess from the picture, the shoyu ramen was extremely similar to the shio, with, well, some added shoyu.


Finally, the mazemen was very good, with the same high quality noodles as in the tsukemen, and with some raw egg and good meat - the whole thing was relatively spicy. All dishes had the same kind of high-quality menma.

Overall, the mazemen had, as often, my preference. The shio (or shoyu) ramen is also recommended, though - but you can definitely skip the egg. Their tsukemen is not bad, but you can give it a pass. And when watching the website, I realize that I missed their tonkotsu-tori-shoyu. Have to come back there some time!

More info on ramendb.

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