Tampopo

I actually heard about this place a while back - a few people told me about the very good ramen place at the basement of Liang Court - but never had the chance till try it... until one Friday evening when I was trying to decide where to have dinner in the Clarke Quay area and remembered this place.

They were featured in Sunday LIFE! a few weeks ago for their Black Pig Ramen being the no. 1 ramen in Singapore, which resulted in a 15 minute queue for a seat. It was a good thing we weren't particularly hungry...

So of course we had to order their infamous dish - Kurobuta Pork Shabu Ramen $13.80++ (also known as the Black Pig Ramen) :


This is one of the rare times when a bowl of ramen that looks spicy actually was!

The fuss about this ramen is mainly about two things - the stock (apparently boiled for two days) and the pork (comes from the Black Berkshire pig which is regarded as the highest quality pork in the world).

The soup, while tasty, was not exceptionally so. The pork, was a little on the fatty side which is not quite a universal preference. I think the ramen did not live up to it's hype...

But what I did like was the Black Pig Tonkatsu $19.50++ :


The pork was really tender and there was hardly any fat in it. Also good that it wasn't overly oily which tonkatsu can get sometimes... much better than the ramen, in my opinion.

And for a side dish, we ordered the Tosa Tofu $7.80++ :


which was deep-fried tofu with bonita flakes. Interesting to have the bonita flake as the outer layer on the tofu, but the tofu inside was kinda tasteless.

The ramen is still worth a try, but what is a must-try is the tonkatsu. Be warned though - there will almost certainly be a queue, and this place gets kinda noisy as it's always crowded with families...


Tampopo
177 River Valley Road
#B1-50 Liang Court Shopping Centre
Tel : 6338 3186