Tampopo, Liang Court, Singapore

It takes alot of courage to name your restaurant after the classic film "Tampopo" and even more bravery to claim to serve Kyushu Jangara Ramen. This little restaurant is actually a combination of both a tonkatsu and ramen restaurant and resides in the basement of Liang Court, right next to Meidi-Ya. I first saw this place a few months ago and decided to give it a shot to see if it lives up to its name.

Their Kyushu Jangara Ramen broth is purported to be boiled over two days and only about twenty odd bowls are served each day. It comes with a nice little dallop of spicy cod roe, half a boiled-braised egg and two slices of pork loin. Any extra ingredients can be added (at an additional fee of course). The soup is salty and quite rich whilst the pork loin with its high fat content almost melts in your mouth. The spicy cod roe is a nice touch because it just gives this dish that little bit more extra flavor to push it into the realms of near divine. The noodles however, could be slightly more springy but this is pretty much a matter of personal taste.

The best way to savor a little of everything from Tomton (the tonkatsu section of this restaurant) is to order the Tomton platter, this consists of the tonkatsu, rolled pork with preserved plum, shrimp and fish. This platter is huge enough to share amongst two to four persons eating a bowl of ramen each. Their quality of fried stuff is fairly decent although I feel that on some days, the tonkatsu is too lean for my liking. It comes with the nice refreshing side of shredded cabbage as well which functions as my obligatory guilt-relief-healthy-lifestyle vegetable haha.

They have quite an assortment of sweets here with some periodic specials which are worth a try because they won't be on the routine menu. This is their mochi-tofu pudding. I'm not sure if there's any dairy in this but it feels so smooth and creamy that most people will be easily hoodwinked into thinking they're eating something dairy in origin. Best of all, it's not too sweet and goes really well with the hot green tea.

This is the first time I ordered this, only because it was named "Scooped Strawberry Shortcake". I thought Strawberry Shortcake was a doll my sister played with when she was a kid haha. The beauty in this dessert is its simplicity. Light and fluffy sponge cake with real creamy dairy whipped cream and some fruits (yes, strawberries too) on top is all you get. And that's all you need because it's sometimes better to just have some straight forward pleasing flavors to cleanse your palate after a meal.

So, now begs the question. "Does Tampopo live up to its name?" If you want some pretty tasty ramen and tonkatsu, this place is probably one of the better ones in Singapore but it's still not Kyushu Jangara Ramen. Please don't get me wrong, Tampopo will consistently deliver a good and satisfying meal for about SGD25 a head but don't expect to be blasted into culinary Nirvana with what they have to offer.

D