Fall For Japanese Ramen!

Speaking of Japanese food, ramen is the one you can never miss! I have recently paid a visit to Ramen Parlor in San Mateo as my friend from LA came over. I found this restaurant on another friend's Instagram. Ramen Parlor has a unique soup base that attracts me. 

Here is a brief introduction to Japanese Ramen. Ramen is originated from China as the pronunciation of noodles (mein) and the character are the same in both Chinese and Japanese. Ramen is referred as "handle-pulled noodles". Good ramen noodles are made with chef who applies a suitable force to the ramen dough then cut to the desire shape and length. As technology advances, there are noodle cutting machine to help the chef so simplify the noodle making process. Besides of the noodles, soup base plays an important role in ramen as well. The most common three soup flavors are: miso, shio and tonkatsu. Miso is made of soy bean paste, shio is salt dominant and tonkatsu is pork flavor. For spicy food lovers, some restaurants offers curry or spicy miso flavors.

I went there on a Sunday night, surprisingly there was not a long wait. The restaurant is relatively small, but is already filled up. Ramen restaurants normally do not take reservation, that is why I suggest all of you to go early or count in the waiting time.

Here is the menu.

 

I ordered a Garlic Lobster Pork Flavor (Black) ramen with egg. Do not be fooled as there is no lobster in the ramen but lobster oil instead! It comes with two pieces of pork. The pork was really tender and filled with a sense of garlic. The soup base is rich, but not over salty. As for the noodles, it is thin and slightly chewy. The toppings are with black fungus, romaine lettuce and two pieces of nori (seaweed).

















We also ordered a chicken yakitori platter to share. It has chicken hearts, gizzards, wings and thighs. 





This restaurant has a minimum charge of $8.95 per person. So take notice of it. Other than that, this is a decent place for Japanese ramen. Feel free to give it a try! 

Ramen Parlor
Address: 901 S B St, San Mateo, CA 94401


Just to share an interesting fact I came up with lately. People in the States refer ramen noodles as instant noodles. However, people in Asia divided up ramen and instant noodles. Some people might think it is not a big matter since they are just noodles, but there is a difference to noodle lovers!