I love chilli and that’s an understatement. Today i ordered Gekikara Shouyu at Kusabi, a new restaurant I walked by and just felt like trying. The menu described the spices used in the hot ramen as homemade chilli oil – that won me over. There were 3 levels of hotness. One, two or three chillies. I picked two just to be safe and now I can’t imagine what three would have done to my mouth. My tongue and the roof of my palate were burning. I get a masochistic pleasure from spiciness, so it was all good. I just took sips of iced water with each mouthful. I was determined to finish all the soup – it was that good.
If you don’t care for spicy you could go for the other ramen items because the noodles seems hand-made, springy and cooked at just the perfect temperature.
The servers here are so polite. I kept waving to the young boy serving us for more iced water and each time he said something in Japanese and bowed so low, right from the waist. They kept doing that each time they came to our table and I found the politeness so thoroughly refreshing. Polite service coupled with good food and high quality ingredients is always a big winner in my book. I would definitely recommend this place and I would go here again for sure.
The Noodles cost S$14.50 and with taxes about S$17, but it was worth the indulgence. That may not seem like a lot in some countries, but here where a plate of noodles at a hawker centre costs just S$3 it works out to about 5 plates of wan tan mee, with change left over. Just to give the costing some perspective.
I think this place is relatively new and opened like about a month ago as this is the first time I came across it. The red signboard rattan decor was quite inviting. The place was absolutely empty when we entered and at first we wondered if we had made a mistake and that the meal would be awful. How typically Singaporean of me, to judge a place based on it’s ‘crowdedness’ factor. But I guess we were just early and people haven’t discovered this gem yet.
photo by bookjunkie
photo by bookjunkie
photo by bookjunkie
photo by bookjunkie
photo by bookjunkie
photo by bookjunkie
I did some googling and found out that Kusabi is top ramen place in the Fukushima prefecture from Northeastern Japan. The ramen is unique because it is prepared with flour milled in Japan and kneaded with fish powder. The soup is definely unique and doesn’t have a strong pork taste like the other ramens I’ve tried. It must be the fish that renders a sweetness to the broth.
Kusabi
#02-170/171
Marina Square
Tel: 6337 2766
oooo I love chilli, though that soup sounds a bit too hot even for me! Would be happy to swap for a chocolate chip cookie though!! 🙂
the cookie would be a great finish to a spicy meal to cool your mouth down 🙂 I heard milk is much more effective than water when you’ve had something spicy and I found it’s true.
CHILIIIIIIII!!!
i have a feeling you love it too? 😉
I think Singaporeans love chilli in general 😀 Most of us do, that is. That’s where fish head curry, laksa, mee siam… all came about! I was watching this show on channel u that tracks spore cuisine overseas and a general observation is that the food cooked in overseas restaurant is much less spicy as their people cannot take our local spiciness 😀
cool….i think Singaporeans as a breed have adapted to enduring great levels of spiciness 🙂