Review: Menya Noodle Bar, Haymarket

Miso Tonkotsu Ramen - $10.00

The first time I visited Menya was back during the days of high school. Friday nights always involved basketball, restaurants, and a bucket of ice cream pre-game. Yes, yes we had ice-cream BEFORE our games. I believe we also told ourselves that a 40minute game would burn off all the extra calories we took in from the bucket.

Yeah...in retrospect I'm not sure if any one of us believed in that. But it didn't matter, because when you're young and had your entire life ahead of you, the calories from a bucket of ice cream wasn't going to stand in anyone's way.

The Miso Tonkotsu Ramen was one of the best I've tasted around. The soup was quite thick, and heavily flavoured without being too rich or salty. The ramen had a certain spring in texture, and for once does not remind me of two minute noodles. In my very honest opinion I've preferred Menya ramen over Ichiban Boshi for a very long time, except the one in Haymarket had always been a bit difficult to get to - especially when work was all the way up the other end of town. Good to know that they've opened up elsewhere as well now.

Menya Mini Shoyu Ramen - $6.90

VH ordered the mini ramen as she is perhaps the smallest eater I know in the entire world. I love eating out with her because two bites of anything and she's full - and guess where the rest goes? *grins*

Either way, the mini ramen was of the same standards as the regular sized ones. No complaints whatsoever.

Dragon Shoyu Ramen (Dynamite hot) - $11.90

JL's Dragon Shoyu Ramen was definitely not as hot as we expected, but he claimed that it was probably one of the nicest bowl of ramen he's had. The mix of flavours had been spot on, and definitely more-ish - even at the finish line.

However, chilli does what chilli does, and JL ended up locking himself up in the mens room after we got home. Despite that, he claims that he would go back for more.

Tori Katsu Ramen - $10.90

Last but not least, was the Chicken Katsu Ramen, ordered by FW. He was sitting a bit far from me so I never really got a chance to ask how good the dish was, but judging by speed that he demolished the bowl, it was definitely a thumbs up.

On a side note, while the food here was great and definitely worthy of numerous revisits, our visit this time round was tarnished by very unprofessional service. It was a hot 30 degree day and the air conditioning was broken, which probably explained why everyone had been in a lousy mood. Nevertheless, we ran into a misunderstanding with the staff concerning seating, and while it was partly our fault to begin with, the waitress had dealt with issue in a very unprofessional manner which resulted in everyone being left unhappy. Given how small a restaurant this is, all I could say is that there definitely was an air of awkward left lingering as we ate.

Menya Noodle Bar
Shop TG8
8 Quay Street
Haymarket NSW 2000
Tel: (02) 9212 1020