What a disappointment. I got so excited at the thought that a local Japanese shop at Liang Court was offering "Kyushu Jyangara Ramen," named after what I (and many others) believe to be one of the greatest ramen shops ever (just look at the long lines outside each shop in Tokyo). So I headed down to this spot, expecting the usual thick, salty, greasy, and wonderfully fatty concotion known simply as Jyangara.
Oh man, did this thing suck. One could tell right away that it was a cheap knock-off: no thick broth, no alternating fat-pork slices, no big chunks of ingredients levitating out of the ramen. Horrible! The only thing that made this thing remotely similar to the Real McCoy was the scoop of spicy mentaiko fish eggs. It had the pork-bone-stewed-til-its-milky-white tonkotsu broth, but it was so runny that it was nowhere near the excessively salty and fatty concoction that you get at the real Jyangara in Tokyo. Argh! At the end of the day, the most that they can stake claim to is that it *is* Kyushu ramen (with the mentaiko and tonkotsu), but that's about it. How dare they drag Jyangara's name in it and try to pass it off as Jyangara's! I wonder if Jyangara even knows about this. Wow. I'm probably not ordering this from here again.
To be fair, it was actually still good in its own right, and certainly wasn't bad. But it just wasn't Jyangara. They never should have set that expectation to begin with (the shoddy service today didn't exactly make me happier either). Actually, some of their other ramen is OK (they specialize in Sapporo ramen instead), and I would indeed come back. Just not for this rubbish they call "Kyushu Jyangara"!
It's a bit funny that this shop is called Tampopo too. I guess they have no qualms with stealing other names.
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