Having BEER RAMEN @ EN SUSHI [Review]

BEER and RAMEN. These two rather common food items are probably no stranger to most of us.

But have you ever tasted BEER RAMEN?

Now you can – thanks to En Sushi, a trendy and contemporary Japanese restaurant which has recently launched this as a new dish.

Situated beside Rendezvous Hotel, En Sushi takes on a trendy approach to contemporary Japanese dining and features an extensive menu of Sushi, Sashimi, Donburi, Maki, Hand Rolls and Yaki Grill items.

With more than two decades of culinary experience under his belt, the restaurant’s owner and chef, Kenneth Tan, crafts each delicate dish to bring out the best mouth-watering flavours of Japanese food for those with a refined and discerning palate.

I was recently invited to a food tasting session at En Sushi, where I got to try the Beer Ramen amongst other dishes.

As I had never heard of Beer Ramen prior to this tasting, let alone tried it, I admit that this was therefore an item that I had been eagerly anticipating.

Beer Ramen

Initially I had expected the Beer Ramen to comprise of actual beer.

But turns out that this dish was ramen noodles in a chilled in-house umami broth, topped with luscious egg white foam. It is served with sides of Tori Karaage, Kaisen Tofu and Kakiage Tempura.

And there was, unfortunately, no real beer used in the preparation of this dish.

However, that said, I must admit that it turns out that I really enjoyed the taste of the Beer Ramen. In fact, I had thought that it was so good that I had polished off the entire glass.

Unlike most hot ramen dishes, the Beer Ramen is cold, and the flavour of the broth is savoury and with a sweet note to it at the same time. I admit that I always like this timeless combination of both sweet and savoury flavours in the same dish, so this Beer Ramen agreed very well with me.

While tasting, I could also detect a strong Shoyu flavour to the broth. But as I drank more of the broth, I felt there was a slight hint of some Miso flavour too.

For the ramen noodles, these are firm and springy, which I liked. Perhaps the coldness of the broth may also have helped to prevent the noodles from being overcooked though.

According to En Sushi, many of their customers are sceptical at first by this novelty dish, but when they taste it, they are immediately converts – just like me.

But when you order the Beer Ramen dish though, En Sushi stresses that you need to eat it immediately because the egg white foam will solidify, which we found to be true, after spending some time taking photos of this intriguing dish, before our tasting.

The three side dishes that accompany every order of the Beer Ramen were also quite enjoyable. The Kakiage Tempura, which is basically assorted vegetables such as carrots and cucumbers, deep-fried tempura style, was warm and crunchy and as a result, this goes very well when dipped into the Beer Ramen soup broth.

The Kaisen Tofu, which is seafood tofu, and the Karaage Chicken, which is Japanese style deep-fried chicken, were both also quite tasty and flavoursome. I thought that the strong savoury notes from these items balance out the sweetness coming from the Beer Ramen quite well.

Each Beer Ramen set also comes with seaweed, sesame seeds and green onions as condiments to sprinkle onto your noodles.

This Beer Ramen is priced at S$22.90 per set.

Appetisers

Besides the Beer Ramen, another dish that we tried was the Pitan Tofu (S$4.90).

From the restaurant’s appetiser menu, this had turned out to be tofu cooked and topped with diced pieces of century egg. Upon trying some, the century egg flavour hits you immediately and the strong fragrance lingers on in your mouth for some time.

But that said, the tofu is really soft and this literally melts in your mouth. It pretty much absorbs the strong flavour of the century egg.

This dish will definitely go down well with those who like century eggs, which I feel is generally an acquired taste.

Sushi and Maki

For the Sushi and Maki items, we had both the Spicy Ebi Fry Salmon Aburi Maki (S$16.90) and the Salmon Aburi Mentai Maki (S$15.90).

A spicy deep fried prawn and torched salmon rice roll according to the menu, the Spicy Ebi Fry Salmon Aburi Maki had been quite yummy. When I bit into a piece, I could immediately detect a subtle spicy note coming from the deep fried whole prawn in the centre of the roll.

As well, there was a crunchiness from the assorted vegetables mixed into the roll, together with a very slight smoky flavour from the torched salmon. Altogether, this created a yummy combination of flavours and textures that hit my taste buds.

So this is definitely a sushi roll that I don’t mind having again – and it is also healthy because all the main food groups are present – carbs from the rice, proteins from the meat, fats from the salmon, as well as vegetables – so you can get all your nutrients within a single roll.

For the Salmon Aburi Mentai Maki, this is described as a torched salmon and fish roe rice roll. And when I bit into this, I was able to pick up a slight smoky note coming from the salmon, together with a bit of a crunch from the vegetables that had been used in the preparation of this dish. The salmon had been soft, moist and tender too, thus nicely balancing out the crunchy vegetables in the roll.

Hot Food

And we also had the Buta Kakuni (S$16.90) which is braised pork belly. For this item, it is tasty and flavoursome, with the rich, savoury flavours from the sauce, arresting my taste buds immediately after I took a mouthful of the meat.

The pork may have been slightly on the coarse side though.

Grill

From the grill menu, we had both the Hotate Bacon (S$8.90) and the Enoki Bacon (S$7.90).

I always love my bacon, especially when it is crispy – so I thought these two items were quite delicious.

The Hotate Bacon is a large scallop wrapped in bacon and then grilled. The bacon had a salty and meaty flavour to it, which was balanced out well with the apparent seafood notes coming from the scallop when I bit into this.

Overall I would describe this as being quite flavoursome.

However out of the two grilled items, I would say that I had personally preferred the Enoki Bacon, which is Enoki mushrooms wrapped with bacon.

This is because the Enoki mushroom had been crunchy and juicy and even though the bacon was a tad oily, salty and slightly dry, I thought that the combination of textures and flavours had been perfect as the mushroom and bacon had contrasted with one another very well.

This item had more texture to it, as compared to the Hotate Bacon, which had been soft, without really having much of a crunchy note.

Dessert

And to end off the tasting session with something sweet, we had a Tofu Cheesecake (S$8.90). I had thought that this cake was very intriguing. When I took a forkful of this, I could detect a hint of tofu mixed in the cream cheese, which was surprisingly more pleasant than I had expected.

The cheese had been creamy, subtle and light, thus the cake was a great way to end off the meal, without overwhelming my taste buds or feeling jelat at all.

However besides the cheese and the tofu flavours, I was able to detect something else in the cheesecake, which I could not place. At first I had thought it was something citrusy such as lemons or oranges, but after checking with the staff at En Sushi, I was told that this was aloe vera. This had been unexpected and had caught me by surprise, I must admit.

The base of the cheesecake was also quite good. The biscuit base was firm and at the same time, held together well without falling apart.

Drinks

Then finally, to wash everything down, I ordered the Hot Honey Yuzu (S$3.50) which is a warm beverage of Honey with Japanese Lemon.

And I had really enjoyed this drink. When I took a sip, the sweet honey flavour came out strongly, but at the same time I could detect a slight sourness from the Yuzu too. This combination of flavours complemented each other very well and did not fight for attention at all in my mouth – so as a result, it made the drink come alive.