Ramen Santouka     山頭火  

To the perky tourists and the cool-as-milk-tea residents, Hong Kong is always one amazing congregation of cultures and experiences in every aspect. The people, the clothes... just about everyone from everywhere, in the big brew abbreviated simply as HK. Of course, food isn’t an exception in this symphony of everythings. There are all kinds of restaurants and cuisines scattered like sand across a beach. Of course, some of these places may not be the best- sometimes rice could be soggy, the soup would be as thick as a brick, or the main course would drive you out of the restaurant. But recently I got to dine at one of the choicer eating places.

On a Sunday night, my family traversed the bright unknown regions of iSquare, to find a place unfamiliar to our eyes (and taste buds), SANTOUKA, a Hokkaido-style ramen kitchen. The restaurant itself is loud and bright, but in an agreeable, friendly way, as if you were somewhere familiar. They put their decorations and trinkets around, and they come together like wasabi, tuna and rice, especially the wooden bear statue above our table.

As for the food it was, put simply, satisfying. Only simply, though- it should be put in more words than that. It was a set; all of us had sets. I started with eggs and cabbage; where the eggs were interestingly chewy, and succulent. The cabbage wasn’t what you would put the blue ribbons on, but it isn’t horribly similar to plastic (like some of the tasteless rubber that comes out in some soups). The salmon with rice, doused in soy sauce and merged with enough wasabi to burn the mouths of an unsuspecting foreigner, was mild, pink, and tender, akin to a newborn kitten in terms of cats. The rice itself was plump and happy already but with cooked salmon, mushroom, turnip sprouts and fried egg they came together to form a mantra of flavor. The noodles were like the eggs; not like the weak, almost dead, overcooked stuff, but the springy, elastic strings with a healthy yellow noodle color. It goes down like butter on pancakes with the perfectly-salty shio soup. Though each family member had a different menu, we were all happy with it.

The price for this better-than-good meal was relatively tolerable, though a tad overpriced with sets for five at HK$450 and tax.

There isn't much choice at 11 am in iSquare. Most shops don't open till 11:30 am or 12 pm.

Luckily, this ramen shop opens at 11 am. It's 11:15 am when we got there. There were 3 tables of customer already.

We were presented the menu once we sat down. There are only 4 kinds of ramen, which differ in the soup base.

We order a Miso soup base and a Pork Bone soup base.Miso soup is rich but not too salty, which is what I like. The ramen is thick noodle. When we ordered, the waitress asked how we like our noodle to be done. I wanted the normal cook, which came out to be just right for me. The chai siu is tender.
The pork bone soup ramen tasted good too. My hubby wanted it to be a little under cooked, which was done accordingly. We also ordered a deep fried beef & potato cake to share. It's crispy but not too oily. So, another GOOD

We were all satisfied with this meal.

As my friend was working there for this summer,
Mother and I went there to support her today~!
She spent her lunch hour with us too, with a box of home-cooked lunchbox and a little restaurant-provide-food…
This Japanese restaurant provides two choices of smoothies in this hot summer,Which were strawberries and green tea matcha smoothies.
But my friend actually told me that they also provide mango smoothie today.Totally, we ordered a bowl of牛油帶子飯, a spicy迷你拉麵, a soy sauce boiled蛋served with sour sesame cold cabbage and a 三文魚飯with a soy sauce迷你拉麵.
拉麵的湯was actually coming too油and the salty soy sauce flavor made the whole bowl of noodles a bit膩~!
As my friend has helped us to make special requirements>V<, our拉麵was cooked just at right time and so was 爽 enough, which mother and I both hated noodles which is too soft.
辣味mini拉麵D叉燒was not肥at all but tasted much softer than the usual Japanese style meat, 碗迷你拉麵was actually幾細and so my friend’s lunchbox came out at this time~!三文魚飯方面，飯粒too黏but salmon魚too乾, 感覺not too good.
Frankly speaking, I enjoyed the home-cooked lunchbox more~!
but i appreciate their service very much, really~!

I tried this 山頭火 because it was less crowded in iSquare when compared to most places in Central.

As expected, 鹽味拉麵 is as good as the one in Kornhill, so yummy!!!

My friend (a colleague from Hangzhou) also loves the soup noodle here. He said he would bring his friends and family to try the food there.

Will definitely come back again and again!!!

Table for 2.
Ordered: Shiou ramen with specialty barbecued pork, shiou ramen set with scallop rice

Shiou ramen:
Rich white soup base with appropriately cooked ramen. Typical of northern style japanese ramen. Red ? Plum supplied was very tangy, a but too tangy for my taste but your mileage may vary... The pork accompanying was fatty and aromatic, great on the palate but bad for the health as for most japanese ramen shop...

The way of presenting the ramen separating from the barbecued pork was similar to what we had in the chinese style "cross-bridge rice vermicelli" and is excellent in preserving the aroma of pork while not overcooking the pork.

Scallop rice:
scallop basted in a thick butter sauce which is rich but perhaps too oily for an accompanying dish for ramen which is already a taxing dish on calories...

Overall
You get what you pay for. Not bad for the price.
Not much alternative at this price though some would consider yokozuna in yaumatei as an alternative yet really isn't...

We love the ramen in Sapporo, Hokkaido, so we were excited to try out Ramen Santouka. We ordered char siu ramen, 1 bowl in original soup, 1 bowl in spicy miso soup. They didn't taste Japanese at all, and we felt very thirsty after we ate the noodles. Thank goodness they serve free water. We also ordered the gyoza, the stuffing was mushy and tasted odd. Don't think we'll come back again!

Was told by a Japanese friend that this same restuarant in Jusco Quarry Bay has the best ramen in town. We checked it out once but the line was so long, they had a row of chairs for people waiting which could not be a good sign. Found out that they opened another one in isquare so we went for lunch. We arrived around 12:45 and did not have to wait in line, service was attentive.

The sets weren't that appealing compared to ordering a simple bowl of ramen and 2/3 sides.
I had "pork bone" base soup with bbq pork, with sides of egg and corn. My boyfriend pigged out and ordered a side of pork neck, which ended up in my bowl

The soup was solid-not very creamy or oily, I kept on talking to my boyfriend so he wouldnt notice that I was drinking all the soup up, but he caught me and I had to resort to drinking 3 last spoonfuls. (He is anti-MSG)

Overall no negative comments, the noodles were chewy, the soup was piping hot, bbq pork was good (upgrade to pork neck is a must), the egg was runny enough and the corn which came with a thick slice of butter sealed the deal for me.

Love Ramen!

Stumbled upon this place and was presently surprised. During a peak time the wait was only a few minutes and the service is quite attentive.

My arteries definitely feel a little more taut this morning but I'm not complaining. The ramen soup was a nice consistency; fairly thick but not over the top. Ordered a Hokkaido style miso based soup with a spicy kick to it. The lard content was quite average too so not overly rich. Deceivingly small bowl sizes actually give a nice portion for the diner who likes to over do it now and again. Only criticism is the boiled egg side, which i think should be a bit runnier.

Ramen Santouka has invaded TST with its newest outlet at iSquare. 2 things I look for in a good bowl of ramen. The soup and the noodles. I consider everything else a distraction. Sure it's nice to have soft cha siu and nicely-done liquid-centred eggs, but these are secondary if the basics are not done right. Santouka comes pretty close to a good bowl of ramen. The secondaries were very mediocre - eggs were overcooked and the cha siu pretty ordinary.

I ordered the original "shio" or salt flavour, pretty much unadulterated unless you consider salt to be sin. A hearty bowl of stock which has been on the boil for a good 10 hours (at least) - an amalgamation of pork bones and other sweet root vegetables, onions, etc which you can no longer detect as together, they've taken on another identity. And considering a pork bone based stock, it wasn't greasy. The little ume (preserved plum) is a nice touch to lift the palate after you're done.

The ramen is fragrant and you can smell it as soon as you use your chopsticks to lift them. Heavy on the eggs, and surprisingly not soggy and heavy. It still had a good bite (I think you can let your server know how you like your noodles) which considering I didn't place an order, is probably the way Santouka san (if he exists) meant for it to be eaten.

The lunch set comes accompanied by a bowl of rice topped with bonito and spring onions and alfafa, laced with soy sauce. A great combination except that there was just way too much spring onion and alfafa that the heat from the 2 overpowered the tiny little bowl of rich and sprinkle of bonito. An unfortunate episode of generosity killed this pup. Was dying for a coffee to douse the heat after lunch.

Overall, a good option for lunch so long as you get there before the crowds do.

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