Although I haven't played Pokemon Go for years, I have been told by some friends that the community is still alive and thriving. Catching up with some friends who are huge fans of the game after a day of hunting, they ended up in West End and we decided to enjoy some ramen together at the moderately new Ramen Works along Montague Street.
Although they didn't take reservations and the restaurant was fairly small, it didn't take that long for us to get a table for six (luckily), but people who came after us did have to queue outside.
The menu was short, as is for most ramen shops. There were less than a dozen ramen options and side dishes. Rice dishes are available during lunch hours. Notably, extra noodle comes at a steep $2.50 per serve. We ordered and paid at the counter.
Although extra noodles came with a charge, they were generous with condiments as well as pickles, ginger and crushed garlic, which was available on a self serve basis.
Our food arrived fairly quickly despite the large order.
We started with a serve of takoyaki to share. This was freshly fried, hot and crispy. It tasted like the the store bought ones I frequently get from Japanese supermarkets and weren't anything special.
Dr L and I both ordered the Works Ramen, being the signature that contained all ingredients.
We opted for the karaage chicken to be served on the side so as not to get wet from the soup. The bowl itself was impressive and very full. It contained charsiu, egg, wood ear mushroom, seaweed, sprouts leek and spring onion. The charsiu was tender but not overly fatty and the egg was a tad overcooked. The chicken was freshly fried, crispy but a little dry. However what stood out to us above all else was how unbelievably salty the broth was. It was so salty that it would have met the threshold for me to have spoken up if asked how our meals were, and if it was any saltier, I probably would have taken active steps to speak with staff to have this addressed. The saltiness definitely overpowered any flavours of pork bone the broth would have had. Other than that, the noodles tended to be a lot firmer than I ordinarily prefer.
For $2.50, this was the serve of extra noodles, it was even firmer than the ones in our bowl and I didn't particularly enjoy it.
Perhaps this experience was a once off fluke on the part of Ramen Works, but given the abundant variety of choices in the area for ramen, I don't think that I would be inclined for a revisit anytime soon.
Taste: 5/10
Value: 4/10
Service: 7/10
Environment: 7/10
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