Jo and I went to Santouka at Central last week (before Ben arrived) to get a good bowl of Japanese chashao ramen. I heard lots of good things about the chain and thought why not?

The ambience was great, and service was really good. Was nice of them to give us a big pitcher of water.

I ordered the premium chaoshao set, hoping the taste was up to the standard of the reviews.

To cut a long story short, everything was good, including the ramen but it had no love. The soup, chasao and everything was technically perfect but it lacked something.

We couldn’t feel the chef’s love in the food.

In Singapore, there’s only 1 chaosao ramen I remember. It’s a small shop owned by a very stoic Japanese chef (funny, they seem to be all like that) near the KTV lounge behind OG Orchard. It’s called Osho, it opens at about 11am, has takeaway bento for lunch and opens late till 11pm or more. It seats < 30 people and it’s literally a roadside shop so it’s pretty warm. The chasao is very nicely textured and has a layer of fat surrounding it. Plunged into the soup before it reaches you, the fatty layer is semi-dissolved in the broth, but the chaosao still packs a punch that makes you remember the taste long after. Better yet, the chasao ramen is also cheaper than Santouka’s by quite a bit.

Sorry Santouka, your ramen’s good but it has no spirit.