Every ramen bowl we serve starts the Kyushu way, with tonkotsu, a soup made by boiling pork bones until the collagen renders out and the broth turns milky white. If you have eaten ramen in Singapore, you have probably met the other great schools first: the clear chicken or seafood broths of Tokyo and the rich miso soups of Sapporo. Kyushu ramen is the southern answer to both, heavier than Tokyo's, sharper than Sapporo's, and built on pork alone.
The four schools, in one minute
Ramen is defined by its tare, the concentrated seasoning that shapes the bowl. Shio is salt, the lightest and oldest style, pale soups that taste of chicken and sea. Shoyu is soy, the Tokyo standard, clear brown and curved-noodle classic. Miso is Sapporo's cold-weather heavyweight, blended fermented paste with sweet corn and butter. Tonkotsu is Kyushu's contribution, and it breaks the pattern, because the body comes from bones simmered for half a day or more, white and opaque before any tare touches it. When the founding kitchen opened in Singapore, most local Japanese cooking leaned on the chicken-stock habit of central Japan. Pork stock was the rarity. It is the reason the restaurant exists the way it does.
Where tonkotsu came from
Tonkotsu is young by Japanese standards. The style is widely credited to a ramen shop in Kurume, a city in Fukuoka prefecture, in the 1930s, where a cook kept boiling his bones longer than usual and found the soup had turned opaque and thick with flavor. From Kurume the style travelled up the road to Hakata, Fukuoka's port district, which gave the format its lasting name: Hakata ramen, strong soup, thin noodles, and fast service for dock workers and office workers alike.
Why the noodles are thin
A heavy broth deserves a noodle that cooks fast and holds its bite, which is why Kyushu bowls use thin, straight, low-water noodles instead of the curly, springy kind you find in miso ramen. Low-water dough is firmer and less elastic, so the noodle stays snappy for the two minutes it takes to cook, and it grips the rich soup with more surface per bite. Thin noodles also soften quicker once served, so the southern tradition serves ramen in modest portions, a small bowl finishes while the noodle is still correct, and a second bowl starts the clock fresh.
What is in the pot
The white color is chemistry, not dairy. Long boiling emulsifies the fat and collagen out of the bones into the water, and the suspension of the two is what you see when the soup turns opaque. The Sunday Times, profiling the kitchen in 2005, described the base as pork ribs, chicken bones, seaweed and tuna, a southern soup with a cook's economy to it, and described the no-MSG rule that the founding kitchen set and the current one keeps. The soup takes hours. The noodles take under a minute. That asymmetry is the whole craft of a ramen shop.
Toppings tell you where a bowl is from
The classic Kyushu topping set is sliced char siew, a half-boiled egg, spring onion, wood ear mushroom and pickled red ginger, with the garlic fried until black. You will find most of that set on our bowls, from the Buttercorn Ramen to the Beppu Ramen, which loads the soup with char siew, sliced beef, scallop, prawn and crab meat stick. If spice is your direction, the jigoku series pushes the same Kyushu base into hotter territory, and the chilli ladder climbs all the way to sixteen.
Eating it here
The soup is what we served from the Far East Square days, and it is what we serve today at 3 Pickering Street. Come by for lunch between 11:30 and 3:00 on weekdays, dinner from 6:00 to 10:00, or one long Saturday service from 11:30 to 10:00. If it is your first visit, order the fried chicken ramen at a chilli count of one or two, and eat while it is hot.