My First Time Eating Santouka Ramen
Intro
Meow meow, hello everyone, I… have risen from the dead after the hell that was final exams 👻 Today I want to look back on a tasty bowl of ramen I had a while ago, namely our beloved Santouka Ramen (Shanlan). I feel like this place is trying to recreate the vibe of a Japanese izakaya. Out front, the sign uses a white base with the shop name in black. For a moment my mind drifted to some famous calligrapher giving one mighty sweep of the brush, sketching out the two big characters “山” and “嵐” on white rice paper, then — like a Wild West cowboy blowing the smoke off his pistol’s barrel (the brush) — admiring just how good his own handwriting looks.
That’s way too much theater in my head…
Santouka Ramen location info and wait time
Full details for Santouka Ramen on Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/e7qapBFmZVcXx2ybA
We walked in at 6 p.m. There were still very few customers, so we got a table right away with no waiting. As soon as you step in, on the left there’s a counter bar with a few people slurping their noodles, and on the right there should be a few more seats — but my memory’s a little hazy on that, so I’ll leave it to you to confirm. The whole place tries to give you the feeling of having stepped into a little shop wedged between two apartment buildings in some Japanese city — a ramen joint run by an old master who, every day after work, can’t stop thinking about that one bowl of noodles. You wait for the old master to swish-swish-swish his noodles, cooked to just the right doneness, and then that deep-red powder unique to akayu (red soup), with little sprinkles of green onion in it, gets grabbed by the handful and dropped onto the noodles — going from restless to calm.
And just when you think it’s all over, a ladleful of beige, thick liquid pours straight down from above your head. In that instant it awakens — but the green onion is full of resentment. It’s angry. It’s furious that the tonkotsu broth woke it from its slumber; it’s furious that the chashu is scorching its skin. So it swears revenge, swears to do everything in its power to dye the entire bowl of ramen red.
The toppings, the broth, the chashu
For me, the most distinctive thing about this place is the chashu. Unlike most ramen shops, which go for thin, pink slices of chashu laid over the surface of the bowl, Santouka chooses to serve its chashu half-fat, half-lean. It’s coated in collagen that gives it a slight springy bounce while still keeping its chew. When it arrives, you first stir in the red powder on top — an extra layer of visual enjoyment. As you eat, you’ll notice the saltiness of the tonkotsu and the heat of the chili are perfectly balanced; the two are evenly matched, each holding its own ground. It’s never so spicy that you can’t taste the tonkotsu, and never so salty that there’s no heat.
Since I ordered the green-onion stir-fry version, they really loaded it up with onions — so if you love green onion, give the extra-onion option a try. It adds an extra layer to the texture without stealing the show; you could honestly say you taste green onion in every single bite. The soft-boiled egg leans toward well-done, so it doesn’t have that gooey, custardy texture, but it also doesn’t have any of that raw-egg fishiness — pretty middle-of-the-road, by the book.
I really did eat my fill, but honestly it was a little too pricey — this one meal ran me NT$400. It counts as a mid-to-high-priced bowl of ramen, so college students might have to go a little hungry to afford it, but if you haven’t been yet, you really should come check it out.
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