Ryu Ramen & Curry: Feasting on Fabulously Flavorful Tantanmen Dishes

Wazzup Pilipinas!

It was time for another Open Rice Philippines foodie meet-up at another notable restaurant in the Metro. My taste buds was highly anticipating another tasty treat this time at a Japanese ramen house known as Ryu Ramen & Curry located at the SM Jazz Residences in Makati. You'll find the restaurant facing the Nicanor Garcia street side just opposite the Crown Center building where One Asia Center, our virtual and office-sharing home, is holding office.

Ryu Ramen & Curry currently have other branches located in Tomas Morato in Quezon City and Up Town Center in Katipunan Avenue, also in Quezon City. I'm sure they will eventually expand into more branches soon just like every other restaurant in the country. The proliferation of restaurant chains in the country is a testament that Filipinos really love eating, may it be local or international-inspired culinary dishes.

Ryu Ramen & Curry takes pride in offering authentic Japanese specialty dishes that satisfactory pleases the Filipino taste. Their spicy dishes can be served in mild version so that even children can appreciate the flavorful culinary treats that lingers even after hours of eating from the restaurant.

Our Open Rice Philippines foodie meet-up at Ryu Ramen & Curry takes us to experience their fabulously flavorful Tantanmen dishes. They have five variations of the Tantanmen but unfortunately only four were served due to the unavailability of the tender Angus beef that is the main ingredient in one of the Tantanmen varieties.

 
Tantanmen is a popular noodle dish inspired by "dandanmian", itself a spicy noodle dish containing preserved vegetables originating in Szechuan Province of southwestern China. The taste of sesame is predominant in both, but unlike "dandanmian," the Japanese variant is usually served as a soup.

Ryu (correctly pronounced as rye-yoo) actually means dragon in Japanese. The marketing team shared that four of the owners were born in the year of the Dragon thus the name Ryu was chosen. The fifth owner is the popular OPM singer, songwriter and comedian Ogie Alcasid.

Most of us have been wrongly pronouncing the word due to the more popular English version highlighted by the Street Fighter video game player character created by Capcom. Ryu is the main protagonist of the Street Fighter series and many of our children grew up pronouncing it as "ra-yu."

The restaurant is huge enough to seat a great number of people that could reach to more than a hundred, and the ambiance does promote an authentic Japanese restaurant. There's a huge dragon image at one side of the restaurant and bamboo tree designs and decorations at some areas.

We were scheduled during the non-peak hours so there will be room for us. I got there earlier so I am witness to how crowded the restaurant was during the lunch hours. Apparently, they already attracted a great deal of customers already. It was not surprising at all since we also plan to get back soon after tasting just a few of their specialty dishes.

The special treat for the day was Ryu Ramen & Curry's Tantanmen 5 which is basically composed of five Tantanmen dishes namely the Yaki Buta, the Gyu, the Ebi, the Karaage and the Classic. The Marketing and PR team of Ryu Ramen & Curry gave a short overview of the company, and introduced us to the Tantanmen 5 dishes.

 

As mentioned earlier, the Gyu Tantanmen was not available for serving due to the beef being out of stock. The restaurant does not want to buy any ordinary beef that may suffer in quality. They would rather not serve it instead of getting flak by serving poor types of beef.

Mixed Iced Tea (Php 60)

There was something special about their Mixed Iced Tea that is specially brewed in-house. It was definitely better than what is served at most restaurants.

Katsu Cheese Curry (Php 360)

The Katsu Cheese Curry is crispy deep-fried breaded pork cutlet served with Ryu Ramen & Curry special curry sauce and fresh white rice taken up a notch with a generous filling of cheese. The cheesy filling truly elevated it into a tastier katsu dish. The flavorful spice of the curry was just enough to enjoy the curry experience without the need to gobble up too much water.

This is not part of the Tantanmen 5 dishes but the Marketing team of Ryu Ramen & Curry decided to let us try it as well since it's probably among their best-selling dishes.

 

Classic Tantanmen (Php 360)

The Classic Tantanmen is rich miso-based broth with delectable chasu, ground pork, egg and noodles.

This particular variety was exceptionally good but I found my favorite one among the Tantanmen dishes, which will be revealed later below. Find out what it is by reading further down.

Ebi Tantamen (Php 430)

The Ebi Tantamen is mostly shrimps and vegetables in a similar miso-based stock noodle soup. It was fairly spicy for me so I needed to drink some water this time. among the four Tantanmen, this is where I experienced more spice probably because it is not as meaty as the other varieties.

Karaage Tantamen (Php 380)

Similarly miso-based broth noodle soup but this time with chicken and shiitake mushrooms and a few other vegetables. I like how the Karaage Tantamen contains crispy deep-fried boneless chicken. Since chicken is easily available everywhere, the restaurant is bound to always have this particular Tantanmen unless they also ran out of shiitake mushrooms.

Yaki Buta Tantanmen (Php 380)

The Yaki Buta Tantanmen is my favorite among the Tantanmen dishes. It's also a miso-based soup that contains tender pork ribs that easily strips off the bone. You'll enjoy the rich flavor of the grilled pork that is truly explosive in taste. For me it beats all the other Tantanmen, but I still am not sure since I have not tried the Gyu Tantanmen. Maybe when I return to the restaurant it will already be available so I could state a very honest opinion on which of the five Tantanmen is truly the best for me.

All Tantanmen dishes are best eaten while they are still hot which is a little bit difficult for bloggers who have to take photos of their food before eating.

Ryu Ramen Curry (Php 380)

Also not a part of the Tantanmen 5 is the Ryu Ramen Curry, the restaurant's specialty where they combine their everyday freshly-made curry with a steaming hit bowl of Ramen coupled with chasu, eggs and bean sprouts. It was absolutely also my favorite among all the dishes served to us. It was actually served before all the Tantanmen dishes so the tasty Ryu Ramen Curry dish was not matched by any of the four varieties.

A pleasant thanks to both Open Rice Philippines and Ryu Ramen & Curry for a fabulously flavorful Tantanmen, and more, dining experience. More power to all and may these fascinating and filling foodie meet-ups continue.

This is where we join the challenges offered by both organizers where hefty prizes are at stake for the lucky winners. Well, for me, the experience of dining at Ryu Ramen & Curry was rewarding already. Winning in their challenge would just be a welcome bonus.

To know more about Ryu Ramen & Curry, please check their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Ryu.Ramen.Curry