What’s In a Bowl?
Luckily, the Echigoya staff soon called us and let us in. When we came in, I felt like I was transported right into a ramen stall in Shibuya, Tokyo They have a counter lined out with seats, where diners can watch the chefs prepare their ramen bowls. Unlike the original ramen stalls in Japan that on average only seat 10 people at a time, Echigoya Melawai has many tables available. We took one of the four-seaters.
Our waiter handed us the menu, which includes interesting offerings such as the Monas ramen, the house specialty which is piled high with beansprouts so it makes a lovely tall, white pile similar to Jakarta’s magnificent tower. We ordered tonkatsu ramen, Echigoya ramen, and Miso ramen. Tonkotsu ramen is ramen noodles with thick gravy broth and topped with a pile of meat, while Echigoya ramen and miso ramen has a more vegetable-accented topping, and the latter has extra miso fermented soybean paste. We ordered a small plate of 5 gyoza dumplings and another small plate of kimchi pickled cabbage. Yes, it’s apparently a thing for Japanese restaurants in Indonesia to offer Korean kimchi instead of Japanese-style pickled cabbage. Don’t ask!
And here it is: my Miso ramen is served. The first thing I did was to take a sip of the broth before adding any condiments, such as chili oil or chili powder. The miso gravy mixture is extremely rich and savory; it’s so good that it doesn’t need anything added to it. Well, except perhaps a couple spoonful of kimchi to eat with the noodle, of course! The noodle itself is sufficiently chewy. It is not overcooked, and not hard either. Is this perhaps what they call “al dente” in Italy? But the portion might be too big for Indonesian women. For the sake of being able to finish my ramen bowl without any guilt, I jogged for 5 km the next morning. Ah, the things we do for love!