menya shinchan

Menya Shinchan is a small ramen house located at a discreet spot in a little yard off the main pedestrian street at Robertson Quay, a spot I always think of as the armpit of Robertson Quay or if I were to be asked for directions to the place, I would say it is "somewhere near the toilet" and people fairly familiar with the sanitary geography area would almost immediately understand. Personal hygiene aside, I have not noticed the shop until a friend pointed it out to me one evening on our way for some drinks (while waiting for another friend who was using the toilet! haha!).

The shop sits beside a Thai restaurant (which is pretty excellent by the way) facing the yard, its full glass shop windows plastered with homemade signs and menu board, modestly proud, like a small family business. The interior is a little sparse but warm, almost charming. The space is wide and shallow with the kitchen at the back, sceened with more homemade signs and short fabric curtains. Counter seating line the exterior side of the kitchen with stacks of bowls, utennsils and condiments placed in front of diners. Tables for 4 fill up the rest of the dining area, save for the cashier counter near the door. The mood is reminiscent of the cramped ramen shops in Tokyo but the scale is palatial in comparison, and perhaps, lacking little buzz of after-work chatter or the excitement of the cook flinging hot ramen into bowls of hot soup right in front of you.

I ordered the shoyu pork bone sinjiro ramen expecting a typical bowl of ramen, perhaps a slightly tweaked version with a signature twist or some secret stock. But it turned out to be a a bowl piled high with a heap of blanched cabbage and bean sprouts drizzled with a bit of soya sauce. The egg and chashu were lined at the side, leaning against the mountain of cabbage. My first thought was" where are the noodles?!", which prompted my next course of action which was to start excavating the mountain. Like a hidden pot of gold, the noodles were buried at the bottom, I almost had to overturn the pile of greens to find it. The noodles were not the typical ramen noodles but thicker and more chewy, similar to something one might find in prawn soup noodles or fishball noodles in Singapore. The shoyu pork bone stock was robust in flavour with a film of oil floating on top giving the stock a little aromatic boost. The cha-shu at the side was unimaginably tender, literally dissolving with the press of the tongue in your mouth. The egg, though, was somewhat disappointing with the yolk fully cooked. A well cooked liquid centre egg, to me, is essential to the ramen experience. The ramen was also served with chopped garlic which I had forgotten to add, as I dove straight into the noodles (or rather, trying to find the noodles).

This particular style of the ramen was not something I am familiar with. A little research revealed that this style is in fact a version of the well known Ramen Jiro of Tokyo. While quite a handful of franchise Ramen Jiro shops can be found in Tokyo, all of their lineage can be traced to the Mita Honten (三田本店) in Mita, catering to the hoards of hungry students from Keio University with their hearty portions. Sinjiro 新二郎 in fact means new jiro, its provenence of the style undoubtable.

The serving portion at Menya Shinchan (as at Ramen Jiro) is, at the risk of sounding sexist, very manly, but if you happen not to have the appetite for a full porion of the sinjiro ramen, Menya Shinchan serves a smaller version called the madame sinjiro ramen, for people with more petite stomachs.

menya shinchan
30, robertson quay
riverside view #01-05