RO — Restaurant in Porto

As someone who eats ramen regularly in Japan, I want to give an honest review. Simply put—it was delicious.

We ordered the Spicy Miso Triple Pork Ramen and the Tonkotsu Shoyu Naruto Ramen. Both could easily stand alongside authentic ramen you’d find in Japan. In fact, we had visited another ramen shop in the city the night before and left unsatisfied—but here, the ramen truly impressed us.

The spicy miso ramen was exactly like the popular “karamiso ramen” in Japan, complete with just the right amount of back fat floating on top for richness. The marinated egg was perfectly seasoned and cooked to perfection. The bowl was loaded with ground pork and diced chashu, which had been seared until nicely browned—something I found refreshing and unique, as crispy chashu is quite rare in Japan.

The tonkotsu ramen was tasty, though I personally would have preferred a bit more of the signature porky aroma. The kitchen is small and spotless, with no smell, which likely means the tonkotsu broth isn’t being made from scratch on-site. I suspect it’s prepared elsewhere and brought in. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—but it does mean some of the originality and depth of flavor is missing.

For both ramen bowls, the noodles were curly and cooked on the softer side. For tonkotsu ramen, thin noodles cooked firm (al dente) would be more in line with Japanese preference.

That said, everything—from the flavor to the service, menu presentation, and cleanliness of the restaurant—was...

I’m a Japanese ramen lover based in Lisbon, I can tell you this is one of the decent ramen place in Portugal. While it’s hard to beat Afuri in Lisbon (that being said, I’m not personally a big fan of trying-too-hard ; sophisticated their style of ramen), this place offers a decent (ok I said this again, meaning their are authentic without compromising too much to lean toward what locals likes to taste) and true to Japanese true flavour. I like my noodle al-dente so asked for one but they don’t me “they can’t”, well what they REALLY mean is “they don’t wanna do”, anyway their noodle is kinda thin and gets over cooked quickly even though temperature of the soup is intentionally set to lower than what it should be, it didn’t really help noodles to go softer than it should before arriving to the table (the owner or the head chef should bear in mind the time from finishing the noodles to garnish and their waiter taking them over to the customer), 2mins cooking time for that thin noodle is just too long. Anyway their triple pork & bbq pork are cooked well, both triple pork and shoyu ramen soup were actually better than most of ramen shops in Lisbon. (I’d put more kaeshi to soup to give more depth tho) side dish: Chicken wings and spicy tuna were decent too. Staff were pleasant and friendly. Chef was handsome. Better call and book if you wanna get terrace...

The decor is too simple, not Asian inspired, something that is expected in such an environment. The beauty of a ramen is in the broth, whose complexity of tastes dictates the value to be paid. In this case the broth is oily, and the miso is too salty, being in my opinion too generic to justify the requested values.

The service was not bad, but the noise inside the restaurant was terrible with groups of tourists talking too loudly on the next table. It is true that management and employees can not be blamed for the bad manners of some tourists, but they could have drawn attention to the existence of quieter tables at the back of the restaurant when, as in my case, they see only a couple coming in.

They should deduce that a couple that enters a restaurant like this (we are not talking about 7 euros per person) for dinner seeks some quiet so they can talk in peace. But let's stay on topic.

In our opinion, the broth is generic, the egg is not well treated with the appropriate syrup and was peeled badly so it came torn up on the sides (not nitpicking at 13 euros per person), the noodles is nothing special and the portions are so - so. In my case, I ordered the vegetarian, and would perhaps expect some mushrooms, I suggest incorporating one day shitake or pleurotus ... If you are looking for a true Japanese experience, spend your money...