Our spicier bowls carry names you will not find on other ramen menus in Singapore: Oniyama Jigoku, Umi Jigoku, Tatsumaki Jigoku, Chinnoike Jigoku, Shiraike Jigoku, and the rest of an eight-part series. None of them are random. Each is named for a real hot spring in Beppu, the onsen city on Kyushu's east coast that our restaurant takes its name from, and the pairing of hell to bowl has been fixed since the founding kitchen in Hong Kong wrote the first menu.
Jigoku means hell
Beppu sits on so much geothermal heat that steam rises from drains and gardens all over the city. Centuries ago, locals could not bathe in the hottest springs, they boiled at close to a hundred degrees and shimmered in colors no calm pool should have, so people called them jigoku, hells, and the name stuck. Today the Beppu jigoku are the city's most famous sight, a walking tour of ponds too hot, too blue or too red to be believed, eight of them, and eight bowls to match.
Oniyama Jigoku, the demon hill
Oniyama is the crocodile hell: the spring's heat incubates a farm of them, which makes it the most restless of the eight. Our Oniyama Jigoku is the most famous bowl in the shop, the fried chicken ramen, served with black fungus and seaweed in the Kyushu soup. It is our best seller, and it is the bowl most people should picture when they think of Beppu Menkan.
Umi Jigoku, the sea hell
Umi is the deep cobalt one, a pond of scalding water the color of the open sea, and the most photographed of the hells. Our Umi Jigoku answers with the sea too: mussel, scallop, prawn and crab meat stick over the Kyushu base.
Chinnoike Jigoku, the blood pond
Chinnoike steams a rusty red from the iron in the water, the oldest-looking of the springs and the most ominous. Our Chinnoike carries heat in its name as well, kimuchi among the toppings, and it can be made with vegetarian soup.
Shiraike Jigoku, the white pond
Shiraike is milk-pale and calm, the gentlest looking of the hells. Our Shiraike is the gentle one on the menu too, a mushroom bowl with enoki and shiitake, and the one we hand to vegetarians first.
Tatsumaki Jigoku, the geyser
Tatsumaki is the geyser, a column of boiling water that erupts on a schedule you can plan a visit around. The founding menu built it from home-made char siew and kimchi for the meat-lovers, and today's Tatsumaki arrives and leaves about as fast as its namesake.
The other three
Kamado Jigoku, the cooking pot hell, is the spring where the steam does kitchen work, and the bowl carries sliced beef for the beef-lovers. Yama Jigoku, the mountain hell, gave its name to the fungus and vegetable bowl the founding menu recommended to the health-conscious. Kinryu Jigoku, the golden dragon, carries the big prawns. Eight springs, eight bowls, one for each, the way the first menu drew it.
How to order one
Every ramen on our menu is marked with a chilli count, and the ladder runs from one to sixteen. One or two is where most people eat, full flavour, comfortable heat. If you can take spice and want more, the numbers keep climbing, and we will respect you either way, but be prepared: the upper half of the ladder is no joke. If it is your first time, order lower. You can climb on your next visit; the bowl will be here.