Shop info:
Shugetsu (麵鮮醬油房 周月)
G/F, 5 Gough Street, Central
15 May 2012 and 28 July 2012, Lunch
~$110 per head
I like ramen. Or to put it better, I like good ramen, especially after trying Menya Musashi at Shinjuku (not Kwun Tong, thank you) a few years ago, where I first tried Tsukemen, the “dipping” ramen which the broth is served separately from the noodles. Strangely, even with the proliferation of swine-based broth ramen in Hong Kong in the past year or so, choices are still limited when it comes to tsukemen. Maybe it’s the owners tendency to follow established trends, or maybe it’s demand driving the new shops to the swine broth – the limited variety in ramen shops in Hong Kong is rather disappointing.
It is therefore a joy to learn from the pages of fellow bloggers the opening of a new tsukemen shop on Gough Street. I first visited on an extremely rainy day in May and subsequently with the other locust in July.
THE ENVIRONMENT
Located on Gough Street near the (in?)famous 9 Kee and “Win Fragrant Garden”, Shugetsu is surely in good company. After entering via the sliding door so appropriate for shops with limited space, the chefs can be seen working the quasi-open kitchen to the right and a rather narrow dining room is directly in front. Having been seated twice at the wall-facing seats near the entrance, I can only tell that as far as I saw most seats are of these wall-facing type – inevitable given they use half the width of the shop to showcase their ramen-making process!
That aside, the setting is that of a casual quick meal eatery. Everything is where you need it, and seating is reasonably comfortable but not of the type that you can spend any significant amount of time chilling out here – good for their turnover for sure!
THE SERVICE
Given the small floor space of the shop, the staff is reasonably attentive. That said, on my first visit they have mistaken my 200g tsukemen order as 300g. No price difference but the result was a significant amount of leftover ramen which I simply couldn’t finish. I did, later, hear the guys sitting next to me discuss why their 300g tsukemen is smaller than my 200g though…
THE FOOD
On both visits I had their signature tsukemen with extra egg. The first was 200-turned-300g and the second time 100g, as lunch-part-two. The egg was slightly more cooked than I’d like on the first visit but almost perfect on the second visit – with a yolk that is not flowingly runny but maintains a jelly-like texture. From the colouration one can tell that these are better flavoured than the almost all white versions at some lesser ramen shops! Very nice.
First visit
Second visit - much better!
Tsukemen - 300g
Tsukemen - 100g
The tsukemen itself is thicker than the usual we have at other ramen shops and was cooked just right. Its thickness, however, does make it feel somewhat more filling than others. Served on a bamboo mat to drain off excess water.
Extremely salty and sour broth
Some say the broth makes or breaks a bowl of ramen, and it is certainly the case here. Unfortunately, in this case it wasn’t for the better. Whatever heritage they have in the soy sauce they use, and however famous their recipe is, it was consistent across my two visits: consistently sour and salty. These two flavours are so strong and so overwhelming that one couldn’t taste any other flavour other than its saltiness and sourness. The pork? Very salty. The marinated bamboo shoots? Very salty. What’s the point of a carefully made broth if it’s so salty that the customer couldn’t taste anything else?
This broth was miles from the one with the tsukemen I had at Shinjuku. That one was full bodied, well balanced with every flavour playing its role. This one was like an orchestra with a dozen trumpets and a dozen trombones – you couldn’t hear anything else!
CONCLUSION
I haven’t tried their ramen with scallops, or the normal ramen with broth. Their signature tsukemen, however, was ruined by the broth. Way too salty, come on. I’m definitely not the first to comment such, and likely won’t be the last. Maybe this is their traditional taste, but why, then, was the one at Shinjuku so much better?
For me, unless they better balance their flavours, I won’t be returning.
Summary (rated 1-5):
FOOD: (3/5) Egg was good, ramen OK, ruined by extremely salty broth
SERVICE: (3/5)
ENVIRONMENT: (3/5)
BIG LOCUST'S RECOMMENDATION: (3/5) May be worth trying… once?
Further reading: have a look at Locust Tunghok's review!
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