Ramen and I have come a long way. Or rather, we started off on the wrong foot with a terrible first experience at Ajisen Ramen, a restaurant that is confused as to the part of Asia it thinks ramen comes from and without a single offering of traditional Japanese ramen. Now, I don’t mind eating ramen, although I still do not go out of my way to eat it when out.
That is, unless there are corn kernels and corn butter in it. I love corn (greatest understatement ever) and butter, and corn butter only ever leads to amazing things. So, off I went to Tenkomori Ramen House to try their Corn Butter Ramen.
This is Corn Butter Ramen ($6.40) in a shio base of clear chicken broth and ‘egg noodle with corn butter, sweet corn, green pickled mustard, fish cake, roasted sesame and shallots’. Seeing all that corn just makes me happy. A generous tablespoon of corn butter was dropped into the hot soup. It melted instantly, but you can still see it as the bright yellow spot in the middle of the bowl. And the corn butter imparts this delicious flavour (much like Corn Pretz) without leaving an oily sensation at all. The corn kernels were sweet and juicy, although they sunk to the bottom of the bowl. The shio soup base was enjoyably light and pleasantly flavoured.
Like Menya Mappen and Oiden, you order at one end, pick up your sides and drinks as you move along the queue, before you pay for both at the cash register.
From left to right, I tried their vegetable croquette ($2.50), seafood croquette ($1.80) and karaage ($2.30). Overall, these were disappointing sides. The vegetable croquette was the tastiest and retained a crispy (although it could be more so) crumb, covering mash potatoes studded with carrot and corn. The seafood croquette had tiny prawns wrapped inside a batter, rather than potato, but it wasn’t creamy and cold. The most disappointing, though, was the stone cold karaage with its soft batter (the worst!), although it was a juicy breast cut.
This here is the Tenkmori Miso ($7.90), ‘egg noodle with stewed pork loin, pickled mustard greens, fish cake, dried seaweed, roasted sesame, shallots, boiled egg and bamboo shoots’.
I’m a fan of miso ramen and this one is decent, though not remarkable. In fact, I much prefer the one at Ramen Goku and even the instant Hokkaidō Miso Japanese Ramen by Nissin. This one lacked richness and depth of flavour, although the sides were enjoyable.
N picks up their Blue Apple Juice ($1.00). We’re not sure where the ‘blue’ part comes in because it’s definitely green, but it may come from the fact that it tastes like liquid sour apple candy without any trace of fresh apple juice.
Tenkomori Ramen House is at Shop 29, Ground Floor, Regent Place, 501 George St, Sydney NSW 2000.