The spicy ramentic has a tonkotsu base (pork bone broth). Photo: Martin Conway.
When Ramentic opened its doors in 2017, Canberra’s ramen landscape was vastly different. If you can cast your mind back that far, you’ll remember it was virtually non-existent.
Billed as Canberra’s first dedicated bar specialising in the now-ubiquitous Japanese bowl of soup, people queued up to get a foot in the door. The demand was so unexpected that they promptly ran out of broth and had to close their doors on one of their first weekends of trading.
Since then, a lot has changed.
Notre-Dame Cathedral burned, Britain left the EU, the US Capitol building was stormed, and there was that time we all didn’t leave our houses for a few years without a face mask on.
On Canberra’s ramen front, a lot has changed too; most notably, it’s now everywhere.
The miso ramen comes with a soft-boiled egg, which you can add into the other soups. Photo: Martin Conway.
Not only is it now found all across the city, but it’s also got a little cheffy, and let’s be honest, a fair bit more expensive. That’s not to say it shouldn’t have: handmade noodles, delightful pickled bits, high-end ingredients like truffle, speciality broths that come in an ever-expanding array of flavours – Canberra’s ramen has climbed to new heights.
With the dish in a continual evolution, I thought it was time to revisit where it all began, so I headed to Ramentic, and I didn’t go alone.
Being the only person in Australia who hasn’t travelled to Japan, I wanted some more cultural context on this fast-moving soup, so I bribed a friend with the promise of a brothy bowl and scored myself a night out with an expert who had just returned from two years of living and working in the land of ramen.
With the man in question being in his 20s with long flowing locks, I kept it all above-board and also invited my husband, and with the three of us lined up along the counter at Ramentic like an episode of Netflix’s Midnight Diner, we battled through an extended fire alarm to consume three different bowls of soup and ponder the important stuff, like how cheffy is too cheffy when it comes to ramen.
The signature bowl simply called ramentic is your classic tonkotsu broth (pork bone broth). Photo: Martin Conway.
According to my unofficial ramen guide, any cheffiness is too cheffy for him. He respects the working-class origins of the dish and isn’t a fan of the direction that a lot of ramen has taken in Canberra. On the ground in Japan, his rule of thumb is the scungier the premises, the better the ramen.
Thankfully, Rametic doesn’t fit the bill as scungy, although the empty planters out front could do with a spruce-up; most importantly, they have kept things simple and affordable. All six ramen on the menu are under $20; there’s no mix-and-match ingredient mayhem or overwrought toppings; and the flavours stick to the classic set: tonkotsu (pork bone broth), miso, chicken, veggie and a dry version with no broth.
Each of these can be bolstered with simple additions such as more pork, more chicken, more noodles and more egg, and a selection of entrees and sides like lotus chips, gyoza, seaweed salad, edamame and chicken wings can accompany them.
Perched on our stools, heads huddled together over our steaming bowls, the staff offer to take our photo and have a good laugh as they point fingers at the insistent fire alarm. There’s nothing like a humorous sledging of a nearby competitor to get the conversation going. When accompanied by one of Japan’s best exports, I think it’s fair to say Ramentic still hits the spot after all of these years.
Ramentic is located at Shop 134/24 Lonsdale Street, Braddon. They’re open from 11:30 am to 2:30 pm and from 5 pm to 9 pm, 7 days a week.
