Everybody is eating noodles these days with the onset of the rains. The best comfort food is this filling bowl of steaming soup, noodles, meat, and some vegetables.
To those who have tried bowls of noodles here and there must try Agara Ramen.
This 14-seater noodle shop has a Japanese chef who artfully prepares each dish. Mind you, the line is long, and you are encouraged to eat faster to let those who are waiting enjoy the meals too.
The ramen list has eight choices and there are cold noodles too in the list.
Karai miso tsukemen has spicy miso dipping ramen and tsukemen is also dipping ramen. The hot bowls of ramen are still my choice on cool rainy days. One basic question asked of servers is the popular dish or the house specialty.
The answer was chuka soba, tauted as the OG of ramen. Searching Google pointed me to a restaurant in New York and Manila when I searched for the meaning of OG. In both sites, it just gave the implied meaning of the term as the best of top.
Taking it to a phonetic level, it could mean, “Oh! Gee!” to express delight. So, I settle for this meaning in the meantime but indeed, you mumble this in delight with the taste of the broth.
Chuka is the thin version of noodles made from whole wheat. The noodles are different of course from the light and soft or almost mushy regular noodles in instant ramen. The chewy and firm noodles used here make slurping a total delight. The savory broth that is a combination of pork with something more I am sure, makes a spoonful of broth with a part of braised pork shoulder some smooth chewy tasty joy that needs a speedy follow up.
Someone remarked the pork was like marshmallow. I agree and adds that the textures make each chew a blend of tastes that are perfectly salted. This bowl of food has fish cakes, nori shaped like a leaf, sliced scallions, mushrooms, and slices of grilled pork shoulder.
The tantanmen is spicy ramen that has a thick creamy broth. This is said to have pork broth too and the ground pork that is the main meat. There are leaves of baby bok choy as the main vegetable with slivers of scallions and garnished with strips of nori. This also has some mushrooms in the broth. This spicy creamy soup with the same noodles as the chuka soba are also heavenly to slurp.
In many Asian countries, noisy slurping gives compliments to the wonderful cook. The spiciness blends well with each ingredient in this preparation. Rolling the noodles with the chopsticks and dropping it into the spoon and slurping the mouthful is one flavorful experience. This cannot be compared to any other ramen house in these parts. Oishi!
The wagyu cubes are excellent. Grilled to perfection, the almost crunchy but juicy and tender bite of beef is delicious with the sweet salty sesame soy dip.
Meant as a side dish, the added flavor to the tasty noodles still gives the distinct taste of tender marbled beef. This preparation is the best I have tried so far.
Of course, ebi tempura is a signature Japanese dish. The batter used in this tempura is freshly made. We were wondering if the length of the tempura sticks were every inch shrimp. We were not disappointed. The sweet-sour dip was every drop good to the bite.
This gave the thumbs up approval of goodness to the meal at Agara Ramen.
Don’t look for sushi and sahimi here because this is more for ramen. They also sell take out do-it-yourself ramen ingredients for you to make your own at home.
Even wagyu cubes are available if you want your own wagyu style beef.
Here’s to comfort hot noodles on rainy days. Enjoy.
