During a short weekend staying at World Square, the surrounding food places I had marked on Google maps surrounded me. As I was headed toward the Vivid cruise (which is an incredible waste of time and money), Menya was enroute. I had starred this place as somewhere to try Sydney's ramen, in addition to Ippudo, Gumshara and Ikkyu.
The setting is very simple and pays homage to the typical Japan noodle bars (minus the free hard boiled eggs and vending machines). At least they had shichimi on the tables on standby.
- Tempura Soba $12.90 (prawn tempura, kakiage tempura, shallot, fish cake & sesame seed) - quality soba with great flavour. The soup was a clear and more simply flavoured broth. Unfortunately the tempura is placed in the soup so the coating became soft very quickly;
- B addon (beef rice and gyoza) $5 - standard gyoza and unexciting beef on rice. Both were just fillers;
- Black Garlic Ramen $11.30 (black garlic oil, roasted pork, fish cake, bamboo shoots, shallot, sesame seed, dried seaweed & seasoned boiled egg) - thin hearty pork soup with excellent quality chewy noodles. The pork slices were thin. The tonkotsu soup wasn't as fatty/thick as I hoped for but full of salty flavour, and the black garlic elevated it to another level, replacing my usual practise of crushing raw garlic in;
- Takoyaki - unusually perfectly rounded spheres with a tiny amount of octopus and topped with the standard sauce, mayonnaise and fish flakes.
It was great value and pretty good overall. Next time I'd stick to the noodles and not the sides. I've read Gumshara has the thickest broth, so maybe this is the place I need to try to emulate Bone Daddies.
