I went about 2 months ago.
The bowl had a messy presentation with most toppings submerged including the formerly crispy square of nori which is the dark stuff at the top of the whole bowl picture.
The seasoned egg was whole and there was spinach instead of the menu listed mushrooms (menu describes the Tomo Ramen as Tonkotsu base, soft boiled & seasoned egg, pork, green onion, bamboo shoot, mushroom, sesame seeds, nori seaweed). I assumed mushroom was wood-ear, so surprising about the raw shitakes.
When they delivered the bowl the waitress had a garlic press and a container of raw garlic cloves and she offered to crush raw garlic into the broth which I let her. 2nd pic is two cloves of pressed garlic in the broth.
The raw garlic flavor dominated the broth along with strong bamboo shoot flavor (I don't remember any tinny-ness). The "tonkotsu" broth was not very porky / creamy and, as Melanie says, tasted diluted.
The wavy noodles were cooked al dente, but had several clumps of stuck together noodles (3rd pic). The egg was medium boiled with a soft yolk and little flavor from the seasoning; still steps up from Santouka's gross overboiled examples.
For me, the best part of the bowl was the chashu with maybe four 3-4 inch rounds; it had a sweet marinade and was nice and tender.
Sounds like things have gone downhill since my visit.
↧