From The Straits Times    |

tsuta ramen  - michelin starred ramen from japan comes to singapore

Photo: Michelin Guide Singapore

The only Michelin-starred ramen shop in the world will be opening a branch in Singapore next month.

Tsuta, a nine-seat noodle shop in Tokyo, won a coveted star from the respected Michelin Guide last year.

Queues form as early as 6am at the eatery in Sugamo, even though the shop opens only at 11am, said Michelin Guide Singapore.

Chef Yuki Onishi, 37, serves only about 150 bowls of ramen daily – each one priced at 1,000 yen to 1,500 yen (S$13.50 to S$20) a bowl.

The Singapore restaurant, an 18-seater, will open at Pacific Plaza on 9 Scotts Road.

It will offer ramen in three soup bases: a miso soba; a shio soba in chicken-seafood broth, rock salt, red wine and rosemary; and Tsuta’s signature shoyu soba.

Don’t be confused by the names though. “Soba”, in this case, does not refer to the buckwheat noodles; the Japanese also use the term “soba” to refer to noodles in general. 

Mr Onishi said people in Singapore are more used to tonkotsu (pork bone) ramen, but he wanted to introduce shoyu ramen to local taste buds.

Chef Onishi even partnered with a shoyu brewer from the Wakayama prefecture to concoct a shoyu (soy sauce) just for Tsuta. He mixes this with dashi and two other soy sauces to prepare this signature shoyu broth.

I had never particularly thought of expanding abroad, but what distinguished the Singapore partner was simply the fact that he came, got in line, and actually ate my food. The other people who said they were interested in Tsuta didn’t do that,” said Mr Onishi.

Key ingredients like the custom-blended shoyu from Wakayama will be imported from Japan to uphold the quality of the food. 

Michelin Singapore said that Mr Onishi is working with the same company who brought dim sum chain Tim Ho Wan and Hong Kong’s Kam’s Roast Goose to Singapore.

Like Tsuta, Kam’s will open at Pacific Plaza in October.

 

This article was first published in The Straits Times.