Affiliates
Contact Us
Century International Hotels
TravelSmart.NET

PHILIPPINES
HONG KONG
CANADA
EUROPE
USA
INDONESIA
SINGAPORE
THAILAND


THE WEBSITE
Philippines

Japanese duo
Source: Inquirer
Author: Doreen G. Fernandez
Date: 1999-09-22
 
The noodles are excellent, and the choices are so wide that

you can go through four years of college without repeating an

order



ON THE GROUND floor of the FBR Arcade on Katipunan

Avenue in Quezon City, is found Shin Ramen Tei (tel. 436-5803),

an ''Authentic Japanese Noodle House and Sushi Bar.'' I

remember well the main branch on Pasay Road, and how it used

to have a sign only in Japanese characters, suggesting that it

was only for those who could read the writing. It only served

noodles and rice, not all the other familiar Japanese dishes. The

comic-books were well-thumbed, because the clientele was

largely Japanese, as was the menu.



Now there are two branches (Edsa-Pasay and Davao) and five

franchises, one of them this one, run by young Ma. Jennifer

Liao and her equally young partners, some of them graduates of

the Ateneo across the street. Their goal: to serve authentic

Japanese food in a pleasant space.



We were pleasantly surprised to find it serene and spacious (the

original had been cramped and crowded, but fun). The menu is

extensive, with 136 (numbered) items in the first part; ramen,

udon, chahan (fried rice), curry, donburi (rice bowls with

toppings), gohan (rice), hot plates, itame (sautied), agemono

(fried), umani, teishyoku, tofu, shiru (soup), aemono (salads),

zenzai (accompaniments); and 69 items in the second part

(sushi). All this is listed with English translations in a glossy

menu with colored photos of many of the items.



I went for hiyashi ramen, cold noodles garnished with strips of

pork, scrambled egg, vegetables, ginger, seaweed, etc. One

mixes them up in the cold sauce with some sharp mustard.

Lovely on a hot day. The Japanese are wise about

noodles--they have them thick or thin, fried or sautied; mixed

with all manner of meats, seafood, vegetables (kuchay,

shredded leeks, bean sprouts), with bean curd and bean paste,

with garlic, chili, soy sauces. And the heat from a steaming bowl

is a separate delight from the freshness of cold noodles served

on ice.



Rice is in the noodle class, whether fried (with pork, seafood,

shrimp, crabmeat) or topped (with beef, mushrooms and egg as

in gyudon; with chicken in a sweet sauce as in yakitori don), or

boiled soft with pork, seafood and egg (zosui, a lugaw) or given

a curry sauce, which, amazingly, is a perennial Japanese

favorite.



My companions went for mixed tempura, her uni sushi (out of

stock, alas, along with ikura), for kappa maki, futomaki, ebi

chahan. We had all begun with an excellent miso shiru (soup),

and ended with an unexpected and unusual dessert: coffee jelly,

light-colored, topped with ice-cream and corn flakes, and

sprinkled with cinnamon. Good.



In short, Shin Ramen Tei on Katipunan Avenue is worth going

to. Although the sushi could stand some improvement (the nori

more crisp, the tamago softer), the noodles are excellent, and

provide enough choices not to have to repeat through four

years of college.



The New Kamameshi House is on Libis (L7-B13 E. Rodriguez Jr.

Avenue, Acropolis Greens, QC; tels. 637-9381 to 82). It is one of

the few restaurants on the Libis strip that occupies a

stand-alone building, not a row-building. It has parking space in

front, and is run by young Michael Dargani, who just finished

college in the United States, and is undertaking this first venture

with some trepidation but with a lot of hope.



He and his staff are most attentive - checking if your order is

correct, if the food is satisfactory, if everything went well. His

ambition: to serve food better than that at any other Kamameshi

House in town.



The specialty is of course Kamameshi, kettle-cooked rice with

chicken, crab, shrimps or scallops. But there are as well

Agemono, deep-fried food like tempura and tonkatsu

(deep-fried breaded pork); Yakimono, broiled and barbecued

dishes like teriyaki steak, skewered chicken livers or gizzards,

tuna jaw, hamachi fillet, etc.; teppanyaki cooked on the grill;

Nabe Mono, hot food cooked in a hot pot or iron, like sukiyaki,

chawan mushi and nabe yaki udon (noodle soup in hot pot

with shrimp tempura and vegetables).



The Donburi list includes grilled eel, shrimp, pork, chicken on

rice. Teishoku is a set menu served with pickles and desserts,

Menmono Japanese noodles including my favorite Zaru Soba

(seaweed and sauce), Ten Zaru Soba (with prawn tempura) and

Cha Soba--all cold and cooling. There are of course salads,

soups, vegetables (fried eggplant in miso sauce; kutchay tips

with fresh shrimps), pickles and a vegetarian list: vegetable

teppanyaki, tempura, sukiyaki, kamameshi rice, yakimono.



And yes, sushi and sashimi, in wide variety. I love both, but am

forbidden to eat raw fish: (as a kidney transplant, I take

immunosuppressive drugs, and cannot risk a single bacteria). So

I enjoyed the vegetable sushi with pickled radish, cucumber, etc.

The desserts start with coffee jello, and continue through Crepe

Samurai and Tempura Ice Cream.



In sum: the kamameshi is good, and worth the trip. The service,

Michael Dargani has reason to be proud of.



I remember the very first Japanese restaurant in Manila--Atami

in Ermita, in the '50s--where my father went to have raw fish, to

the horror of many friends and relatives. Now, almost half a

century later, young and old are blasi about sushi and sashimi,

hamachi head and bento boxes. And in Quezon City, which

seemed then to be the boundary of civilization (especially

before the UP, the Ateneo, Maryknoll, etc. set up schools

there), we now have these two Japanese restaurants about 15

minutes apart--and quite a lot of others nearby, further out,

surely in the future.
 

Indonesia Thailand USA Europe Canada Hong Kong Philippines