Monday, September 03, 2012

Great concept but the quality does not match up @ Benlitang

This is a relatively new ramen joint in Central and there are not many reviews on this place so I decided to try it.

It seems quite strange with the ramen craze that not many people have tried it or even reviewed it.

Anyway, when I got there the menu was quite good, they had about six different broths, dumplings and different noodles to choose from.
However the dumplings were no longer available and the noodles were down to a few choices.
The unavailability of the dumplings were a big disappointment because there were so many flavours: Curry, Pepper, Water chestnut, tomato, octopus [takoyaki - jeung yu]. I really wanted to try the octopus dumpling but it wasnt available!!!
For broths they had:
Spicy pork bone / pork bone / sichuan chili pork bone / miso pork bone / soy sauce / Curry Black pepper and vinegar / hokkaido butter corn.
Judging by the broth and dumpling choices it somehow does not seem authentic Japanese ramen, but Japanese inspired with a hint of Chinese fusion.

For noodles they had: udon, white noodles, white chewy noodles, yellow noodles, chewy yellow noodles and thick noodles.
The choice were great but they should have sample pictures or a better description just like Kurotaki in Causeway Bay.

The noodles were priced according to the broth.
The prices were either $60 or $70 which is nearly the price of the noodles at Butao or Ippudo.
I wanted to try the hokkaido butter one but in the end chose spicy pork bone and black vinegar!

When the noodles arrived they both looked identical from the colour to the contents!! SPOT THE DIFFERENCE!!
I tried the black vinegar and there was no hint of sourness or any smell of vinegar which was totally disappointing because that broth cost $70 and I might as well go to the other well known ramen places.
I queried why there was no vinegar taste and they just said there is vinegar on the table which I could add, so if that was the case I might as well order a $60 broth and use the vinegar on the table.
I suppose visually you could just about see a few specks of black pepper in the broth.
I would have thought the vinegar that they used would be different from the condiments on the table, anyway they finally gave me some extra vinegar and it was not even BLACK, it was Yellow coloured!!!!
Black vinegar that is not black??
Black vinegar that is not black??
Black vinegar on the receipt
Black vinegar on the receipt
So it was really weird that on the menu it was called BLACK vinegar but the one they use was not BLACK!!
Just for fun I took a picture of the NOT BLACK vinegar next to the vinegar on the table which was BLACK!
Bottle on the right is da Vinegar from the table!
Bottle on the right is da Vinegar from the table!
For the spicy pork broth there was nothing overly delicious about it.
For the noodles I chose white chewy noodles but they just seemed like the ones at Ajisen.

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