Ramen Heaven at Ryo's

I'm in love. With Ramen and a little restaurant. It all started innocently enough at 10am this morning with Gmail chat. What started as 1st week back at work of 2011 boredom soon lead to talks about being hungry, to Japanese food, to the chapter on noodles in one of the books that I just in read Sushi and Beyond, to Ramen, leading me to quickly look up Japanese restaurants, to a little place called Ryo's in Crows Nest. Calling my friend and I Japanese food obsessed would be an understatement. But now I'm obsessed with this place after just only one visit. Even though I can still feel the food straining my stomach walls, I'm still thinking about it. It will most likely be in my dream. I think I may have to tell my boyfriend about this...

Ok, ok, I think I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself and I haven't even begun to describe the food. But first, I would recommend heading to Ryo's early. We got there straight after work today at around 6.30pm. There were only 2 groups ahead of us. By the time we left, there was a massive queue (despite the fact that it had started pouring with rain).

Now, onto the food. We had already looked at the menu before we got there. (We had been thinking about it, and annoying our work colleagues by talking about it non-stop all day after all). I ordered from the "chicken soup" section of the menu: Tokyo style soy sauce flavour with roast pork, nori, bamboo shoots and egg ($10.50), while the lovely Miss B ordered from the "Pork Soup" section: Soy sauce flavour with roast pork, nori, egg & shallots ($11.50). (It also had bok choy in it and was a denser, lighter coloured soup with sesame seeds in the sauce). To share, we chose the gyoza 5 pieces ($6) and the Roast pork rice balls ($4) for 1 large ball.

I'd just like to quickly point out that the Tokyo dish I ordered was number 3 on the favourites chalk board and Miss B's was number 1. And if you wish to refill your Ramen (like in our dishes), or any other style of noodle, it only cost $3. Shmargin. You can also pay between $2- $4 for other toppings on your noodles. We were in heaven. My kind of heaven.

In my Tokyo style soy sauce flavour with roast pork, nori, bamboo shoots and egg the ramen noodles were cooked perfectly; chewy, the nori was plentiful and the chicken and soy broth was tangy, rich and flavoursome. The roast Pork was not too fatty and the extra chilli I added worked perfectly. This is one of the best ramen I have ever had. This is with the exception only of this random place that Miss S and I stumbled upon around the wee morning hours on our way back to our hostel from a night out in Tokyo last 2 years ago.

It must be the darker soy Tokyo style of broth that I like. We both decided that the Tokyo ramen was the best because of its broth. Miss B's Soy sauce flavour with roast pork, nori, egg & shallots was still very tasty. It was the thicker broth texture that made her one special, however the darker, richer soy flavour in mine was the winner. Although I still did finish both off... Hmmm tasty. Spot the difference:

Tokyo style soy sauce flavour with roast pork, nori, bamboo shoots and egg

Soy sauce flavour with roast pork, nori, egg & shallots

The food is served amazingly fast and it's not the sort of place that you can settle into for the whole night. If you did, you would make some enemies out of the people waiting in the line outside and also, it's not that kind of place. It's quite an authentic ramen restaurant where you come in, eat and head off.

Despite thinking that the bottle on the left had some kind of amazing clear misu in it. It's actually vinegar... jsut in case you were wondering...

Gyoza. Serving size actually 5, we just started eating before I remembered to take the photo.

The gyoza is served piping hot, crunchy on the outside and soft and delicious on the inside. The Roast pork rice balls however, confused us a little. After we decided that fingers were the best option of attack, I watched Miss B struggle with her one (we ordered 1 and they cut it in half for us) and eventually spill it's innards all over the plate.

pork rice balls cut in half, with one "exploded"

I've never been able to eat these! There's just something about them that doesn't scream "I'm a bit of food" to me about them... we made a table decoration out of them instead, much to our waitress's amusement

I decided that the best option would be to use my fingers also and keep in in my hand the whole time. This mostly worked. I was waiting for the wow factor whilst eating this meal, but it just never came. The pork was cut into fine pieces and spread throughout the rice, wrapped in a little bit of seaweed. There wasn't one larger piece on the inside like I was hoping. I would skip this one as it's a little bit plain. But I would highly recommend all other meals that we ate. I'm coming back here again definitely!

Open Monday to Sunday lunch and dinner. Closed Wednesday. Get there early. Trust me.