An Unfinished Ritual, Mai Ramen at Jaya One

To me, rituals often present themselves as a bunch of obligatory chores which have been put to reinforce some expired logic from the past.

Recently, however, I joined a choir singing a different tune. Having concluded that we were constipated by a whole host of soul-sapping habits, a few friends and I decided to create a new ritual of purging. The idea was we would make handwritten personal lists of the nasty forces we'd foolishly allowed to infiltrate our little lives, recite them to one another as some sort of a poetic and serious pledge and then conclude by burning lists in a bonfire (or well, in the interest of containing the threat of open burning, a scaled down version in a Milo tin).

So this one afternoon, huddled over bottles of prosecco, we scrutinised and dissected our lists in great detail. Before long, our wills to rid ourselves of these ill compulsions and elements were fortified by ridiculously optimistic cheer and approval. The bubbles helped too, of course.

Alas, before the fiery finale, we decided to make a quick dinner pit stop, which led to unfortunate truncated proceedings.

Mai Ramen, brand new at Jaya One replacing Simply Fusion, called out to us as we stumbled a little, trying to find our footing at dusk after all that unfeigned motivation. I had been hankering for a robust bowl of ramen for weeks now and with all that alcohol swirling around in us, we were hardly in the state of mind to trouble ourselves with options. Makes sense that a recurring item on our lists of things to eradicate is the abuse of alcohol to solve all of life's most trivial problems.

I immediately called loudly the Buta Kakuni (Braised pork belly) Ramen. Ever since my sister Mag inducted me to the lavish flavour of this dish which takes days to prepare, I have not been able to look at another pork dish the same again.

All ramen dishes share the same tonkotsu broth, thick, milky white, not as common as the clear shoyu ones available in other local ramen joints. I had expected the soup to be heady and overly salty, similar to the leanings of Tokyo ramen bars but was pleasantly surprised to find it a milder version.

The Jikasei Chasyu (Homemade barbequed pork) Ramen got the same enthusiastic reception. Check out that accompanying half of a bona fide Shoyu Tamago done right - moist, slightly underdone, creamy yolk, yes!

The Tamanegi no Takana Ramen with spicy vegetables - not entirely vegetarian given the broth but my selective vegetarian friend enjoyed it to the last slurp.

The ramen used here isn't the standard, slightly curly yellow noodles but a thinner, straighter version in pale off-white. I still prefer the thicker bite of the former but this still makes a pretty luscious bowl of noodles.

Mai Ramen's main courses come with the set option which includes 3 pieces of Gyoza, a side salad and tea. We enjoyed the Gyoza thoroughly - medium thickness of the skin, right dollop of meat & chive stuffing dipped in vinegar dressing.

The let-down of the meal would be the Soft Shell Crab Okonomiyaki, which was a soft, doughy, nondescript mess. I've long established that I am no fan of okonomiyaki so an inferior execution would do it even less justice, even when it comes topped with a whole soft shell crab.

Perhaps the highly gratifying meal interjected my ritual logic for when it came for time for us to resume the final step, I declined. I reasoned that I needed to keep my handwritten list to remind myself what I was letting go, although in hindsight, I was simply too drunk and too tired to bother with the Milo tin inferno.

But no matter, the unfinished ritual was truly liberating and the source of interruption, deliciously comforting. Meal was very reasonably priced too, about RM90.

Mai Ramen
Block C, Ground Floor
Jaya One

Who Wants to Live Forever?

For the longest time, there's been a preoccupation across traditional and contemporary cultures with human mortality and the finiteness of life. Longevity, or a long life, is a highly coveted aspiration from Utopian ideology to Japanese traditional culture, as this delicious bowl of toshikoshisoba, handmade buckwheat noodles in hot tsuyu that was served in my older sister's home on New Year's Eve, symbolised.

Who Wants to Live Forever, went Queen. Quite apt for the following day. With weather in the Kansai region of central Japan getting oppressively colder over the New Year, retail and commerce coming to a grinding halt for a few days as the nation celebrated, who the hell would want to?? Despite my misgivings, I couldn't bring myself to discount the good faith and intent of the season. It did allow me to catch up on some serious drinking, interspersed with the hunt for the scarcity of food joints that stayed open. One such was the local branch of the popular Hanamaru udon chain.

Memo went for a bowl of Negi Udon (udon with spring onions), so simple yet so swiftly gratifying after a short an effective self-service queue. While waiting to reach the server to your order, you are accosted by a dazzling array of sides and add-ons - steaming oden, onigiri, tempura EVERYTHING (chicken, sliced lotus root, prawn, fish, even an egg, yes a battered whole boiled egg!) to dunk into the soup and tempt our fortune.


Mag had Niku Udon (beef slices). Other of our top choices were Wakame Udon (seaweed) and Onsen Tamago Udon (half boiled egg, served hot or cold). The bowls of noodles on their own were fairly spartan and would have made wise choices for a long life, but topped with all the deep fried goodies that we piled on our side plates, a longer life was probably not a serious aspiration.


Neither would have this Dan Dan Ramen contributed to upping our life expectancy, from a packed ramen stop at Nagoya main train station. Memo thoroughly enjoyed the thicker strand of egg noodles submerged in a massive cauldron of heavy stock underscored by ground peanut and minced pork. Made even the typically lavish and salty miso ramen or chasumen stock seem diluted in comparison.

While the question remains if extending life is natural or necessarily laudable and modern science continues its onslaught into the study of reversing the aging process, the Japanese has been ahead of the game, living longer than their counterparts elsewhere. Eating right, minus the super-sizing or the add-ons, is one way to expire later.

Ise Udon, served only in Ise, city of the most sacred Shinto shrine in Japan, encapsulates no-frills eating. The appreciation of the dish of thick handmade noodles served in a black broth made from soy sauce and sake, garnished only with spring onions, requires a radical shift from our habitual need for nourishing sides and indulgent extras.

Rather than harbouring absurd expectations of how much longer I can stretch my physical existence here, I'd translate longevity to be an aspiration for a life long and extended on fulfilment and happiness, short on restraint and remorse!

On that note, Eat and Drink on!

Shanghai Ding, New World Park

Eating out starts to get repetitive after a while. Especially when we're pining for good la mian and we're in Penang. We found ourselves back at Shanghai Ding's branch at New World Park, despite having had a less than stellar dining experience there a while back. It was one of those lazy afternoons where we just couldn't think. Plus, based on the fun we had at their original outlet near Queensbay, we figured this one deserved a second chance.

And the verdict? Meh. More of the same, unimpressive, cookie cutter chain store disease.

Noodles with Minced Pork. The la mian was decent, but the minced pork sauce was a sickly sweet sour variety that tasted bottled. Next please.

Plain noodles with spring onion, served with peanut sauce. Probably one of the very few redeeming features of this branch is this... they manage to get it right because really, how many ways can you get something this plain wrong? The delicate flavour of the sauteed spring onion blended extremely well with the chunkier peanut sauce.

Shanghai Meat Dumpling. Have had better. The filling was too scarce and simply not quite soupy enough.

We ordered Kai Lan to balance out all the carbs but this came sorely overcooked and limp, practically fell apart when held by chopsticks. I like my vegetables to maintain a bit of crunch, unless to mask the lack of freshness.

Prawn dumpling, which came looking more like Siu Mai than the traditional Har Gao. We did dimsum here shortly after it opened and excused the frozen taste of the dumplings then, opening glitches and all. Nothing has changed. Still frozen, still tasteless, still looking like mangled pet food. Under NO circumstance should one order dim sum here. You have been warned.

Papa Chow ordered a Claypot Spare Rib rice (not pictured), which came in a serving fit for half a child. Carbo-driven Papa was NOT happy.

The bill came up to RM48, which was borderline reasonable, considering the location. I would come back for the plain noodles, but not much else.

Aji Noren, Prima Tanjung

Food in films is probably one of the best things to live for. We settled in at home last night to watch the Japanese classic Tampopo, a deliciously hilarious movie consisting of vignettes about food and all related fixations. The main story is that of a widow who runs an inferior, sorry ramen shop who seeks the help of a kind-hearted mysterious "cowboy" and various other characters to serve better ramen and turn her business into a success.

We loved the movie and naturally, the ramen craving that took us to bed last night kicked into high gear come lunchtime today. There aren't many ramen options in Penang and we've pretty much written off most of the ones we know, i.e. Yataimura, Aji Sen. There was just one which we felt OK returning to, Aji Noren in Tanjung Tokong.

It's been a while since our last visit and I got excited to see in the menu some of my all-time favourites, apart from ramen, such as Omu Raisu (also wickedly featured in Tampopo).

Fat Tulip studies pretty extensive menu

However we came strictly for ramen and only ramen it was! They had reasonably priced ramen sets so both of us dived straight for that.

Fat Tulip's Miso Ramen.

Slurrrrrppp.... Tampopo style!

My Chashumen Ramen. Essentially same ingredients but my broth was somewhat lighter than the thick and murky Miso Ramen's. We'd both been spoilt rotten by our ramen experiences in Japan so we weren't expecting this to blow our minds but nevertheless, we were overjoyed that the ramen was of decent quality and the serving was generous enough to satisfy our massive post-film craving.

Both sets came with a serving of Gyoza. This was flavourful and full of bite but again, not out of this world.

For RM20++ each, including an uninspiring salad (basically shredded cabbage with a dollop of slightly-off thousand island dressing) and fruit, I'd say this was fair enough. While the ramen probably did not go through the refining process as Tampopo's, I'll be back for the Omu Raisu.