Menya Musashi Ramen - Review

Now this is why the brand Menya Musashi is worth a try if you love ramen like I do!

1) Price - In term of pricing, Menya Musashi is reasonably priced given that their branches are in popular malls like Orchard Ion and VivoCity. A chashu ramen is $12.90. Add a $3 buck and you get to choose a delicious side like marinated mini octopus, gyoza, etc, to complete the meal.

2) Variety - if you like variety in your ramen, Menya Musashi did a good job. Your ramen comes in your preferred base of "red" - spicy, "black" - garlic or "white" - normal. And besides this, the menu gives you options of different types of ramen beside the chashu which I like. Something worth mentioning is this special dry style ramen which you can opt up to FIVE freaking times the noodle portion. That's right, FIVE FREAKING TIMES, and all at the same price. It's a style of ramen whereby the soup base and ramen are served separately & eaters dip the ramen into the bowl of soup/gravy to soak up the sauce. I think it's good for very hungry customers. I haven't know of any friends being able to finish the mega portion though. 

Menya Musashi also comes up with seasonal special to surprise customers. I'd recently tried their Tom Yum dry ramen. It's not bad, just that I think I prefer soupy ramen. ;-P 

Anyway, this is what a red chashu ramen looks like:

3) Locations - The brand has sprouted in quite a few places since it's flagship in Singapore at Raffles City. The latest opening should be at the new mall - Westgate. The other locations are Star Vista, Vivocity, Thomson Plaza, Bedok Mall, and Ion Orchard. My guess is they will continue to expand as the franchise is under a rich  boss that runs other popular Japanese eateries in Singapore.

4) Customer friendly - okay I don't really know how to coin this so "customer friendly" is perhaps appropriate. The restaurant provides disposable chopsticks and paper towels on your table - something not every restaurant does. It's perfect because sometimes (we all do) you drop your chopsticks in restaurants and you need a spare, or some noob waiters/waitresses serve you food without cutlery, or you accidentally smeared sauces on your face and need an emergency wipe and you are the kind who is too lazy to bring your own tissue. Heck, the restaurant even put a note that says they serve customers bibs upon request - that's right - bibs. In case you don't know, definition of a bib is: A bib is a garment worn hanging from the neck on the chest to protect clothing from spilling.  I have never actually saw any customers with a bib on but hey - it's perfect for damn messy eaters, or if you have a $200 pristine white shirt on and any spill is gonna set you back by a bomb to clean, or if you have damn messy kids eaters, or if you just wanna be funny to take some selfies of you acting like a kid.

Another important customer friendly point  - ramen are served with the onsen egg and seaweed as pictured. Some local restaurants charges you $3 for an egg or seaweed. That is freaking daylight robbery loh. Every time I see a menu which I have to pay separately for the onsen egg, it irks and pains me. Because that means the ramen will cost over $20 sometimes. Again - freaking daylight robbery feel.

I think in a competitive world, some details like these do matters, and it matters to me. So I say - keep it up Menya Musashi! It sets you apart from the rest.

Now good things aside, I will be frank about 2 factors that may bother you (a little).

1) Consistency - this bothers me a lot. There were occasional inconsistency in the soup base. I know. Because I eat often. Period. It irks me when food are served different from my expectations. I suspect the occasional slip may be due to factors like new cooks. I stated "occasional", not always. So good luck. Didn't stop me from going back.

2) Staff - I have nothing against hiring of foreign talent. But I believe in hiring foreign talent who can speak good English and understand your orders, and whom you can also understand when they speak. I think staff training is required in some branches. Not a big issue once you confirmed they got your right order.

Well, I hope my review is useful to you somehow. Here's a parting shot of me camwhoring with my ramen. LOL.

Byeeeeee!!! And if you are lazy to google, this is their webby: http://www.menyamusashi.com.sg/

Maybe they should pay me for the raving!  Haha.

Meowie Christmas to you!

Wishing u a very Meowie (merry) Christmas from Singapore!

May your coming year be blessed with good health & happiness!

And here's a photo of the mad cat!

MEOW! 

Be random, be fun, be whatever you want, as long as possible. Grow older in age, not in mind. Stay youthful at heart! No, I'm not advocating reckless stunts even if YOLO! Haha.

Su Zhou, Shanghai, Yang Zhou ~ It was a much needed holiday! (Part 1)

Yeeha! Back from a long holiday and feeling much refreshed! Haven't update my blog for a while! Travelling posts are usually long and filled with a lot of details as my holidays are usually packed from morning till night! But nope! Not this one. This holiday was leisurely and relaxed as I spent it at my relative's place at Su Zhou (Reads: FREE ACCOMMODATION! Yeeha! :))

It was a ten days trip - fully maximising the 2-to-fly promo from Singapore Airline as they only allowed a maximum of ten days for the promo flight. Good enough for me since I do not have enough annual leaves to blow anyway! I traveled with my gran ~ my fav person in the world! Both the to and fro flights were red eye flights ~ flying off past mid night and arriving in early wee hours. What to do? The promo flight means the return ticket per pax is less than $500! Nothing to complain abt further at that price for SQ!

We were to stay with my uncle who had been working at Su Zhou for years. Staying with a working relative plus super cold weather means not everyday is jam packed with activities. But I love it that way! Enjoying cool weather while taking a break from the harsh Singapore lifestyle with no 101 items to be done like my typical holiday! I didn't plan anything for the trip, basically going with the flow on wherever my uncle suggested! It felt like a school holiday that I do not have to shoulder responsibility for. The only drawback was I'm afraid of cold temperature and had to wrap myself in several layers of clothing during the trip. 

First on Su Zhou. We arrived at Shanghai Pudong airport and went straight to Su Zhou to find my uncle via a 1.5 hour car ride. Since my last trip to Su Zhou more than a decade back, the city has changed a lot. It now contains many mega malls much like those in Singapore. They also have international restaurant chains like those in Singapore. Industralisation really changes places. The speed of development appear much faster than Singapore's neighboring countries. During my stay, I visited some pretty "atas" malls much like that in Sg's Orchard Road, went for karaoke, dined at classy restaurants, ate hong kong and taiwanese desserts and tasted some of the sweetest strawberries I ever had (bought from a supermarket) and took their MRT for $2 RMB. Overall my impression of Su Zhou was pretty good except for the air pollution that happened at the time of my visit. Some snap shots of Su Zhou:

The shopping area surrounding a beautiful river:

This area has the world longest "corridor screen" which is something like a meandering tv screen used to air major events like the olympics. I didnt have the chance to see it light up at night. But guess what I found here? - Ya Kun Coffee & Toast from Singapore! Haha!

Some food galore at various malls ( You get the idea. Wonderful food with 2 thumbs up! Except some local dishes properly require some adapting to.)

Of course, I'm not saying every inch of Su Zhou has been replaced by modern facades, there are of course pockets that reminded us of the past. And these are in fact the more memorable areas I'm more interested in. The following shot shows a small stretch of preserved land in Su Zhou called "San Tang Street". It is more like a tourist spot but hey don't you agree it is beautiful? They still have delivery boats running through the area.

Next up - Yang Zhou. We visited Yang Zhou during a weekend. It was a quick trip after visiting a city called "Dan Yang" which is something like a capital for all the spectacle shops in China. Everywhere in Dan Yang is occupied by spectacle shops! According to my uncle, spectacle lenses in China are all mostly made in Dan Yang. They take orders from other major cities and courier over the finished products. We went there because my gran needs to make a new spects and the cost to make it in Singapore was abt $400 for her prescriptions (My gawd!!). The cost of making her two pairs of spectacles (took them less than an hour to make em at the shop itself!) was only about $100 SGD. I'm impressed. However, Dan Yang is much more polluted than Su Zhou and Shang Hai and you will basically be breathing in dust. We hopped in one random restaurant at Dan Yang and the food was great. Especially the dish "Dong Buo Rou" - braised pork that has simmered for hours until the fats are supposedly melted. This is a famous dish so I recommend trying it in China!

We dropped by Yang Zhou to visit a popular tourist attraction surrounding a lake called "Shou Xi Hu". Due to the lack of time, we didn't get to spend long hours at the attraction. Mainly took a boat ride from one end to the other end. It was a beautiful area that was owned by a group of wealthy salt merchants in the past. According to the boat guide, the place was a must visit by previous emperor when ever he step out of the palace to visit his lands. And they even have a mini version of the place built at the ex-capital for the empress since she can't travel out from the palace. And when the emperor wishes to fish here, the salt merchants will ensure there is a catch by sending divers down the lake to hook big fishes on the emperor's hook. Funny. The place was scenic. But entry fee was not cheap! I think it was $200 RMB. The place was pretty but I think the entry price is too high?

 

(To be continued in the next post cuz I'm tired!)