Kira Ramen

Everyone wants a piece of the action at Pantai Indah Kapuk and now introducing 'Kira Ramen' as the new addition to the Japanese Ramen eatery at PIK. I often come to sit at PIK, have dinner, drink coffee, hang out, chit chat and play cards with my friends. But yesterday as I gave the stretch of cafes a good observation, I'm bewildered on the amount of 'Bubble Tea' (six place) and 'Japanese Ramen' (five place) joint. Restaurant is a cut throat business, you excel and survive (which means ka-ching!! high margin profit return) or you loose out to your competitor, within a year or so another person is going to take over your place. Therefore, I'm not sure about the fact whether 'competitors within a location' came in those owners' mind. Nevertheless, I'm here to comment on the food and not to judge ... hehehehehehe ...

Menu : Tonkatsu Shoyu Ramen

Price : RP 45,000 ++
Score : 5.0 / 10

>> The photo on the left was after I stirred my chopsticks into the bowl of soup, then I realized I had forgotten to snap a picture of it. So, as presentation wise, it's definitely better. Bottom line, the soup is lacking in taste. Definitely not enough seasoning and there is no depth in taste of the broth. It simply taste like luke warm slightly salty pork soup. After one sip, I said to FW 'this needs help'. I poured in cut red chilies, spoons of garlic, spring onion, sesame seeds, chili powder, chili oil and a good dash of shoyu. After all those aid, it eventually became better. But a good dish is simply having nothing needed to add into. In addition to the downside, I think the ramen is slightly overcooked for me. Maybe two minutes too long. They didn't offer any choice on how the customers would like their noodles to be cooked, nor on the 'heaviness' of the broth (which some of it's competitors do). But on the up side, their chasu has a much thicker cut, thus a better texture to bite into even after a good 10 minutes in the warm soup. And that pork chasu might have just saved the menu from a fail to the edge of 'just pass'.

Menu : Tori Teriyaki

Price : RP 25,000 ++
Score : 4.0 / 10

>> I'm sorry, I didn't fancy this too much either. This dish is a simple dish executed wrongly. The batter is too sweet for my palate. It feels like a fried battered pop corn chicken heavily dipped in sugar honey glaze and then served. The chicken were at a correct bite size and the batter were crispy, but the glaze on top has to be changed. I'm not a chef nor a good cook but my tongue says 'It definitely needs less sugar'.

Kira Ramen

Pantai Indah Kapuk, Crown Golf Ruko Blok D/30

(The same stretch with Ikkudo Ramen)