Competition, the world seems to have decided, is a thoroughly good thing. Governments across the globe are carving up old state monopolies and setting the parts against each other – oligarchs are better than bureaucrats, apparently. TV shows get more like The Running Man by the day. And nobody wants to watch entertainers simply entertain anymore. We want to watch them compete – then get insulted by a camp man with a god complex when they fail. Yep, there’s nothing in this world that can’t be improved by a bit of competition.
Or so they say. Coconuts decided to test this modern-day article of faith with a visit to Ramen Champions on Thonglor Soi 10. This quirky little venture, owned by food magnate Mr Tan of Oishi fame, pits the recipes of six famous Japanese ramen chefs against each other. Six noodle emporia in the same complex, all vying for superiority. Who serves the best bowl? Does a sprinkle of competition make for a better broth? And does it match up to the best ramen Bangkok has to offer? These were important questions – and we wanted answers.
On the case were four men who love their ramen. Me. “Bigman”, a journo from the US. “Littlechef”, a restaurateur from Melbourne, bringing the culinary expertise. And “Arutsu-san”, a Hoosier with several years in Tokyo under his belt, a ramen otaku who knows How It’s Supposed To Be Done.
As men with a profound respect for the principles of the Enlightenment, we wanted to make the test fair and scientific. Arutsu-san made me promise I wouldn’t let my tonkotsu fetish bias me against other types of broth. And we had a methodology: Sit down. Ask the staff to name their shop’s best dish. Order one bowl and four glasses of Asahi. Deliberate, cogitate and digest. Repeat. (A pedant might object that the consumption of alcohol throughout the experiment rendered it unscientific. To which we’d say: Yeah, good point. But fuck it.)
We began at Shodai Keisuke. The waitress recommended kani miso ramen, a crab and miso-based soup. We added an egg and extra chashu (roast pork) and nori (seaweed) to the proceedings. The broth, containing beansprouts, onions, small bits of ground pork and some overly tough bamboo shoots, had a strong seafood flavor that left us somewhat nonplussed. “It’s like a bisque”, noted Littlechef, and he was right. Arutsu-san was unimpressed. “The miso paste tastes like it came out of a packet,” he pronounced.
On the positive side, the noodles were nice and firm and the chashu won respect for its robust flavor and texture. “The fat had a good render,” said Littlechef. But all in all, it was a less-than-stellar start.
Next up was Setagaya. “The Setagaya ramen is the most popular, but the Japanese like the gyoro ramen,” said the waitress. Gyoro ramen it was, then. The bowl arrived, a creamy stew without a visible trace of anything resembling a vegetable. “A man can’t live on yellow alone,” noted Littlechef sagely. (Further inspection was to uncover a half-assed nod to vitamins in the form of some small pieces of cabbage.)
The dish came with chashu and another pork cut that could have been loin. Covering the broth was a 2mm film of translucent flab. The soup proper had a deep caramel complexion but its upper depths were clouded by particles of fat and garlic. The flavor of these latter elements hit us hard. It was delicious.
“How do you make these small pieces of lard?” I asked Littlechef. “You boil the shit out of it,” he said. “It’s all scummy and lumpy. And in my mouth.” I said it was a bit fatty for my liking. “It’s supposed to be,” said Arutsu-san. “Imagine it’s 3am and you’ve been drinking. That is going to be the best thing you could put in your body.” Arguable, I thought. But the gyoro ramen had impressed us all. At the same time, its insane unctuousness had taken the wind out of our sails – and we were only a third of the way through. This was worrying.
We moved onto Gokumiso, where the waitress suggested Gokumiso special ramen, a Nagano-style miso broth. Some of us had reservations about this one since the picture showed a bowl brimming with sweetcorn. “School dinners”, I said, and Littlechef agreed.
What emerged from the kitchen was actually a very handsome bowl of soup, its centerpiece two balls of spiced ground pork dappled with sesame seeds and pepper. The sweetcorn was there as promised and actually worked, adding a crunchiness that benefited the dish. Littlechef said something unrepeatable about corn, and we all laughed.
The fat on the chashu, of which there were three generous slices, melted away effortlessly. The broth was nice and spicy and became even more so as the spiced pork sank in. It was almost reminiscent of chili con carne or spaghetti bolognese. We wolfed it down and realized something good: we had found our second wind.
And so onto Nidaime Tsujita, which was easily the most crowded of the six shops. Since it’s a law of nature in Thailand that the fuller a restaurant is, the better it is, we expected great things. The waitress suggested the nidaime tsukemen. The dish came in two bowls, with the broth and noodles separated. The noodles had a slice of lime on them, which Bigman noted was decidedly non-Japanese. And they weren’t cooked consistently.
Sadly, the broth won no fans either. It had a one-dimensional flavor that the chef had obviously tried to disguise using excessive quantities of salt. Present, too, was the dreaded monosodium glutamate. “Why’s this one so popular?” I wondered aloud. “Simple,” said Littlechef. “MSG.” We were getting full, drunk and pretty sick of noodle soup.
We powered on to Taishoken. “We can’t let the fact that we hate ramen now bias us against these last two,” I warned, probably in vain. The waitress told us the tsukumen special was the one most customers ordered. It was another two-bowler. This time the noodles were well cooked, firm and consistent. But the broth, which was over-sweet, did not impress. Arutsu-san said it reminded him of ponzu, Japan’s all-purpose citrus vinaigrette. “This just tastes like super-sweet sauce from a bottle,” said Bigman. The pork was another loin cut, sliced against the grain, though it had good flavor. Taishoken had failed to win us over.
Miserably full but conscious we were close to the finish line, we trudged over to Kibi, ordering a final bowl – the paitan special. We were surprised by what we got: a chicken broth with a robust flavor and a bony creaminess. “You could cure a cold with this,” I said. Also in there were kale stems, just as you’d find in a bowl of wonton noodle soup. “This is great,” I ventured, and everyone agreed. “But it’s not ramen,” said Arutsu-san, and everyone agreed again. Still, it was a mercifully light way to end the feast.
We settled on two winners: Gokumiso, the spicy miso bowl that gave us a lift when we needed it most, and Setagaya, whose garlic and lard-heavy gyoro ramen we agreed would be transcendental after a skinful (and after all, that’s when you’re supposed to eat ramen, right?).
How did these two fare against the best Bangkok has to offer? Arutsu-san had fallen in love with Setagaya, though he admitted it wasn’t something he could eat too often. Bigman and I were sure the divine Bankara was better than anything we’d eaten that night. We’ve even heard rumours that Ramentei, with branches in Silom and Phrom Phong, is better still – but it will be a while before we’re inclined to check. Ramen Champions, then, is a mixed bag. Competition can be a lot of fun – but the be-all and end-all it ain’t.
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