David Ramen     舞心拉麵  

My friend and I wanted a quick dinner in cwb so came to David Ramen to try it out. Since this place is right across from Butao, it's hard not to compare the two. We arrived around 8 and butao still had a long line waiting outside but David didn't so I would say David is a good choice for people that don't want to wait. Afterall, I dont think it's worth it to eat for 15 minutes and wait for an hour? I wasn't that hungry so we ordered the "special tonkatsu ramen" to share along with extra side of bean sprout and shredded fungus. The bowl of ramen isn't too big, I think it's a good one person size. The broth is a light cream color broth and then drizzled with black sauce on top of it. Also, in the middle theres a spoon size of thick red paste to mix into the soup. I first took a sip of the broth, and it's light yet very flavorful. But as I work through my ramen, the broth seemed to be a little bit too salty for my taste. The ramen came with one piece of BBQ pork, half soft flavored boiled egg, bean sprout, shredded fungus, and green onion. The BBQ pork is very flavorful and tender, but I wish one bowl would atleast come with two pieces instead of one thin slice of meat. The soft boiled egg is not as runny as I would like it to be but the flavor is good. The bowl comes with a good amount of veggies for the whole bowl of noodle. The noodle that it comes with is the thin type of ramen. I got it cooked normally, and it wasn't too soft or too hard, just perfect. Everything from the broth to the noodle is good, but I think the soft boiled egg is not as good as butao ramen's. The broth here is also not as thick as butao's which is a good option if you don't want the thick and heavy soup base. Although its not a place where I would crave to come back often, but this will do when i want a quick ramen fix.

So we were having our regular CWB visit and the regular Ramen contests, where we aim to eat all the Ramen from all of the ones in CWB, 魂,豚王,舞心,Mist (not in any particular order)

well



ordered one hot and one cold and a side dish.This one was a 紫菜叉燒巻, it was actually not bad, the Chashuu was chopped and mixed with mayonnaise, then wrapped in rice and fresh crispy seaweed. The Chashuu complimented the rice very well and the crispy seaweed gave a crunch to it.

Scored 6/10

Suddenly want to take ramen. Thus, went to CWB to see if I can sneak in any popular ramen restaurants in there.

I went to David at 11:50, and luckily that I was at the 3rd waiting list.

I ordered the "Black" ramen.The taste of the soup is very good. I think it is one of the best that I taste in last 3 months. However, the egg is rather normal. It can be more fluid. In addition, there is only 1 barbecue pork, which I expect should have 2 to 3 in there with this price.

I also ordered the dumpling.
It is quite good. The dumpling source is already in there and you don't need to "tip" any additional source on it.

Overall, I'd recommend my friends to try this restaurant. It would be better if the price can be cheaper

We were planning to try Butao but it was closed on Sunday morning and we decided to try David's Ramen. We were there 10 min before the restaurant opened for lunch and were the 3rd group of customers in the line ( we would normally not queue for food).

The place was very clean and bright. A very nice light feature with bright Japanese handmade paper patterns on the wall. Staff were efficient and took our order before we were allowed in (not a minute before the place opened).

I had the spicy ramen with hard noddles. It was very delicious. My husband had the special ramen with soft noodles which was also very good. We agreed the hard noddles are better. The eggs were perfectly soft boiled. Other reviewers commented the pork was not the best but we thought it was pretty good. The tea was refreshing. We also had the minced pork rice rolls, they were Ok but nothing special.

When we left there was a long queue outside.

Verdict - would definitely come back provided there was no long queue. It's a great place for a quick delicious ramen - not the place for long relaxing lunches as the staff are doing their best to serve the hungry queuing customers as quickly as they can.

The price was reasonable for the quality.

Dined here a long time ago but the noodles were not that memorable so left the review until now.

I wished I went recently because they now have the limited edition summer noodles just like "jau yuet 周月" in Central as seen in TaiwanWalker's review.
The summer noodles here have okra, mountain yam and these cute mushrooms on top which would have been fun to eat.
Anyway ordered the Special Tonkotsu which is just the tonkotsu noodles with extra black garlic oil.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Wow, and I thought I was an early bird! Looks like news has spread already and it's already getting crowded!

I arrived at 7:10 pm on Saturday and was required to sit at a table for four with two other customers. Luckily, there was no queue. On the other hand, there was still a huge queue at ButaO, which was just located right across the street. The shop was slightly bigger than ButaO and a lot more spacious.

Again, I came here because of the food reviews and enticing photographs of the "Red" ramen. It was a simple one page menu with three types of ramen only: "White", "Black" and "Red". In view of the generally artistic nature of Japanese people, I'm surprised the restaurant didn't have a fancier name for their ramens like most ramen shops, like King, Spirit, Samurai Bone, Legend, Earth,Wind&Fire...etc. I suppose the obvious candidates might be "Red David" or "Dance of Black"...etc.

Anyway, I ordered "Aka". There's no application form to fill in but the waitress will ask you whether you'd like your noodles to be soft, medium or hard. I chose medium plus the black fungi (きくらげ 黑木耳). She also suggested gyoza which I tried. After a 5-6 minutes, which was much faster than Buta O, my Aka arrived:It was very aromatic when the noodle was placed on the table. I had a sip of the cold rice tea 玄米茶 (Genmaicha) before trying the broth.

The broth was quite special. The type of spiciness should be made from spicy miso and a bit of chilli oil. The white objects in the middle were chopped raw onions. This, together with the spring onions (not chives like Tatsuya), adds a bit of complexity to the Aka broth.

It wasn't too spicy for me I had to put a little bit of extra chilli oil into my noodle (at the very end just to try out the combination). The chilli sauce on the table was very interesting, it's quite similar to Kwai Lam chilli sauce but very finely grounded and had a slight but distinct taste of seafood (bonito or scrimps?)

The two tastes with really stood out the most was miso and garlic. It's a lot more garlicky than most ramen. Imagine crushing two to three extra cloves of garlic into your Daruma or Ippudo pork bone broth and you'll get the picture!

The pork bone broth was slightly thicker than Daruma but not as strong as ButaO. It's probably a bit similar to Ippudo. It gets progressively stronger and stronger if you don't eat it quickly once your taste buds fully registered the garlic essence in the broth. So focus on eating it and not taking photos like me. It will taste a lot better!

All in all, I agree with other food reviewers that the soup was good.

The noodles were quite nice. It's the thin Kyushu noodle. It gets soft pretty quickly so I suggest you eat it quickly and order the hard version. The bamboo shoots and black fungi tasted nice and mixed well with the noodle and the broth. The black fungi possibly had a bit of sesame in it. It's a lot better than those provided in ButaO.

The egg was practically completely cooked. So if you're here for the egg, you'll be disappointed.

The Char Siu, however, was just so so. It looked tender but actually wasn't as tender as you might think. Certainly the fat part was soft but the meat was quite tough. Just a bit of meat taste.

Gyoza was not good at all and was the main reason why I initially wanted to put just OK on my scale (I eventually did after thinking long and hard). It's gooey and very hard to separate the gyozas. Even the supposedly crispiest bottom part was not crispy enough. The gyoza, which appeared to have only frozen pork as the filling without chives or onions or other fillings, had absolutely no juice inside. I could not taste any pork taste. Osaka Osho is much better (whether the frozen ones you make at home or those served at food courts). Not recommended.

Conclusion:

The pork bone broth was delicious. It's thicker than Daruma but not as thick as ButaO, somewhat similar to Ippudo !?

The Aka ramen had a very strong garlic taste and appears to be spicy miso based (with some chilli oil). It's quite good if you want to focus on enjoying the pork bone broth. It will not overwhelm the pork taste.

The char siu and the egg were nothing special.

The noodle was nice. I suggest you ordering the hard version. Make sure you eat it a.s.a.p otherwise the broth will become too strong and the noodle be become soft rather quickly.

I will not recommend the gyoza.
If you like Japanese gyoza, I'll recommend "Osaka Osho" nearby at Times Square.

If you are fussy about the egg and char siu, you'll be disappointed.
If you like the noodle and pork bone broth but don't mind the egg and char siu- it's Good because of the very nice broth.

Perhaps they are getting used to the sudden increase in customers? The service was good despite that. Everyone was very friendly and had a smile on their faces. Seemed professionally trained. I'll probably return again once the quality is more stabilized.

總評:

叉燒無甚特別，蛋亦不是溏心。
但豚骨湯底比達磨濃、可媲美"一風堂"。
辣味噌及辣油不太辣，沒有搶去豚骨湯的味道。
麵條為九州系的幼麵。偏軟，提議叫硬的。

蒜頭相當重手、很香，但要快快食完否則湯會變苦。

餃子就強烈不推介。
喜愛餃子的朋友，可試”大阪王將”．

環境舒適。比豚王寬敞很多。
服務亦很好。明顯訓練有素。笑容可恭。

喜歡偏濃豚骨 (又不介意蛋質素不穩) 的朋友可以一試。
可能新開業未能應付太多客人以至質素不穩．會再試．

______

後記：

因為餃子吃不下又有點想表示不滿，打算留低兩件餃子離開的時候，

對面的食客高興地，以感激之心說：”真係開心啦．又搵到可以食倒好食拉麵既地方！”　

然後繼續開心地欣賞她們的拉麵

．．．

聽到後，

立即直覺地加了兩大羹辣椒油，

將餘下的餃子點進去，

吃罷才離去

．．．





．．．

P.S.:

What I'd like to share with you, and which I personally think is more important than my humble opinion about the taste of the food, is this:

Two girls who sat in front of me after the previous customers had left, ordered a "White" and a "Red" ramen. When the ramen arrived, they took a few photos which was seemed to be very professional cameras (I did not look at them as I was focusing on the ramen and I think it's quite rude to interrupting them by staring). They started eating the ramen and were commenting positively on the ramens they were having.

At the same time, at the other end of the table, I was finding it quite hard to finish the last two pieces of gyoza. I was wondering whether I should just leave it where it was (partly to show my dissatisfaction and partly since it was not easy to finish it...)

...they then commented that they were really really happy, and I believe they really meant it wholeheartedly, that they found another ramen restaurant which they could enjoy - such positive gratefulness.



...

After listening to that,

I instinctively took some more chilli sauce,

dunked the gyozas in it,

and finished it before leaving David.

...