two fat buns: Ooh ah, Ramen Ya

Ramen Ya

Shop 25G, 350 Bourke St,

Melbourne

Nestled in the laneways of GPO is Ramen Ya, busily churning out steaming bowls of Japanese noodle soup, or 'Ramen' for noobs. We joined the queue lining up to order and spotted a pile of cute origami templates on the counter. We ambitiously grabbed four templates, which we would later attempt to make whilst waiting for our food to arrive.

origami templates

We both decided to get the Charshu Ramen (ramen with pork), with different broths. I got the Miso base which was flavoursome but a little too salty.
Bun got the Tonkotsu base, which is a pork bone broth. Bun's ramen had the winning soup. Rich salty broth with a slight sweetness and almost thick in texture- very tasty.
In the soup were generous amounts of noodles accompanied with tender pieces of pork, pickled ginger and radish, spring onions, seaweed, bamboo and half a boiled egg.

We, in our infinite wisdom know what makes a good ramen (based on information obtained from internet land), and we were disappointed in a couple elements of our noodle soup. Firstly, the egg yolk was over cooked, and not the gooey texture it should have been. Our ramen also lacked bean shoots, which, although not necessary, would have been nice.

charshu ramen

To go with our ramen, we also got a serve of Gyoza. Lightly fried and not too oily, these crispy pork parcels had hints of ginger and chives. Once dunked into a tangy vinegar, they were yummeh. Bun enjoyed these more than he enjoyed his noodles.