Food Review: Men-ichi Ramen Restaurant

Since the bf was booking in to work late, we decided to meet up for lunch at Nex Mall @ Serangoon. I’d only had one bowl of soba during my entire trip in Hokkaido, so I wasn’t adverse to trying out this new Japanese ramen place in the Japanese Restaurant enclave located at Nex, on the same level that has Ding Tai Feng.

I generally liked the decor of the place, with the red tables and black furniture, but my boyfriend was pretty much freaked by the endless rows of fa cai mao lining the walls (he was the one sitting facing them haha). He commented that it was a pretty weird name for a restaurant, Men-ichi, as if they were saying Men are Good/Best (ichi)… I laughed and then looked at the Japanese characters – directly translated it actually means mian (noodle) best (ichi), so perhaps they should’ve named the restaurant Best Noodle or Best Ramen (though it might sound too similar to Best Denki). Or maybe their boss is a very patriarchal man who has fun with wordplay, I wouldn’t know!

Compared to other ramen shops I’ve been to, such as Ippudo and Ajisen, Men-ichi had quite a large variety of soups for you to choose from. There was tonkotsu, shoyu, miso, spicy and even tomato! As neither of us are ardent fans of tomatoes like Caroline is (that girl merrily consumes all our tomatoes on a regular basis when we eat out), we refrained from choosing that option. Instead, I went for tonkotsu char siew ramen, whilst the boyfriend went for a shoyu ramen set that included fried rice and gyoza.

(left) the menu showing what i picked, (right) the actual item

I thought it was pretty clever of them to use the same background for both the menu and the tables they had, it definitely contributed towards making their served items look more similar to the menu! The seaweed was the normal cheap seaweed you buy that comes in long packets (4 each), not the traditional Japanese seaweed. The tonkotsu soup was definitely very good, upon tasting it both the bf and I were definitely pleased. According to the Men-ichi website, they boil the tonkotsu soup over 14 hours, and it truly shows results! Very unlike the processed tasting soup some ramen places have. However, halfway through my meal I began to feel slightly unhealthy, as one can tell that they use a lot of lard in making the soup. The char siew and egg were perfectly done, though I’d note that the char siew was more fatty than I’ve had at other places, which some people prefer. Overall, extremely delicious and I would definitely order it again!

As he was starving, my bf opted for the set, which looked deceptively small, but was extremely filling. His bowl of ramen was slightly smaller than mine, and saltier, but less savoury as it was shoyu (soy sauce) flavour. Both of us loved the fried rice, which had eggs, some meat and a nice kick to it. I didn’t try the gyoza but he said it was pretty good so I’ll trust him on that! His ramen didn’t come with the aji tamago (watery egg / half boiled egg you see in my ramen) so he added it on for $1 (a full egg, not half).

In total we paid about $38 inclusive of GST. Ramen on its own costs anywhere from $12 upwards, and sets are more expensive.

Men-ichi in a nutshell:

1. Food: Great! We loved it as it was very yummy and good quantity for our $$. We would definitely eat there again. 4.5/5
2. Ambiance: It’s not too noisy, the seats are comfortable, the only detracting factor would be the endless rows of fa cai mao staring at you while you eat. 7/10
3. Cost: Moderately expensive, but the food was good. 7/10
4. Service: The staff were attentive, they were competently bilingual, polite and even asked whether the food was to our satisfaction. Simple things like that made us happy. 9/10