SANPOUTEI. A name that used to be the elusive ramen place that everyone keeps talking about but now I've jumped onto the bandwagon and tried it for myself. And I say, yes, yes, yes! But only if you picked the right soup base for your ramen.

There was a good mix of locals and Japanese in the brightly-lit ramen bar. It sounds weird to mention that it's brightly lit, but only because most of those I went had this hole-in-the-wall factor - SANPOUTEI actually reminds me of cafes with its unabashed neat arrangement of seating areas.


Baskets and purse hangers are provided for bags of the patrons, allowing for 100% comfort level despite the slightly squeezy floor plan.

The first ramen on the menu (which I've decided never to trust, ever again) was the NIIGATA SHOYU Ramen. The shoyu soup stock was rather thin, saltish (rather than savoury), hints of sardine and tonkotsu. I don't like how it didn't match up to the springiness of the ramen noodles which were really awesome. After eating so much ramen, I can't really tell objectively how different the ramen noodles were except that this was above average. But... the one that took my breath away was this:
Rich TORI x MISO Ramen is the one you've gotta try when you are here. I haven't tried the Spicy version which I suspect I would love as well, but the original is definitely awesome. It's the first time the ramen broth diminished way faster than the ramen noodles did in my bowl! The broth was so thick, not with random nonsense, but eggy goodness with very rich tonkatsu to form a umami goodness that slips into the ramen spoon like velvet. No kidding. It's addictive and I slurped it all up spoon after spoon (I usually only fill the broth up to about one-fifth per spoonful). No fancy tricks with the ramen noodles, aburi chashu and the egg yolk was expectedly good, but I was too preoccupied with the broth anyway. With good soup base, three-quarters of the battle is won. Please try this.

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