Daikichi Ramen 大吉 (Closed)

New kid in town, Daikichi Ramen had a bright red signboard and a cosy setting. The place was a little dark-lighted, unlike the Japanese restaurants that we usually see. We intially wanted to have lunch at Menya Noodle Bar, but it was way too crowded for our tummies to wait. So we set for Daikichi Ramen, just right across the street. 

Daikichi Ramen

Shop 5/209 Thomas Street

Haymarket NSW 2000
Australia

We had to place orders at the cashier first, before we were seated. It wasn't easy to decide which ramen to have, since they had quite a variety and flavours. The lady at the counter was also speaking to us at the same time about their new spicy ramen, which wasn't captured in menu because it wasn't in time for printing. I wished I could have more time to decide which ramen I wanted to have though.

There were a few groups of patrons who took up the few huge tables that they had in the restaurant, and the rest were tiny tables with wooden seats. I would say, the tables were slightly tiny to accommodate three people, since they had three chairs at the table we were seated at. Lucky we only had two of us.

It was a pity we weren't served warm water in that chilly weather. It had a self service counter for water, but it wasn't refilled. Not sure if they eventually did, we had the cold water anyway. Our ramen came quick, and we couldn't wait to dig in. 

What I ordered was a Daikichi Ninniku, which had a fried onion base soup. Looking at it now makes me hungry :p On first try, the soup was nice, salty and thick. But the more I had it, the more it was slightly on the bitter side. Maybe the fried onions were overly fried or too much oil went into frying the fried onions, I'm not exactly sure.. The noodles were slightly tangy (or Q, like how Asians would describe it :)), but they had a noodle taste instead of "noodle soaked in broth" taste. Not sure if I described it aptly, but I reckon the noodles weren't absorbing the broth taste, which was a pity. I particularly liked the egg because it didn't have the after egg taste, which I don't fancy. The ramen also came with a seaweed, which, I'm not sure what was it for. I ate it anyway, but neither taking it as it is nor dipping it in the broth worked well. 

The other ramen we had was the Daikichi Miso (the ramen were all named after the store, Daikichi). I sneaked a little of the broth, which a little too salty for my liking. Same for the noodles, they didn't absorb the broth, so it was kinda like noodle + broth, rather than ramen maybe? Well, I like my ramen with noodles that taste like the broth, it's just me.. 

The last we shared was Yaki Gyoza, which came in five pieces. It was, I can safely say, nicely done. I liked the gyoza very much, the meat wrapped inside was dripping with juice (hehe). The gyoza sauce that we tried were slightly diluted though, I wouldn't even know it's gyoza sauce if the waitress told us so! The gyoza was pan-fried nicely, perhaps the better one out of everything we've tried. 

That's all for my experience at Daikichi Ramen. I'm not exactly sure if I'll drop by to try again, but we'll see! Another thing I noted was, they had Homebrand white pepper on our table too. I felt it was a little weird, it doesn't make the entire experience very Jappish with Homebrand white pepper. Wouldn't Jap restaurants order their ingredients from Japan or at least imported from Japan and manufactured in Australia? I don't know either.. Maybe Japan hasn't cleared the customs for their exports now, after all that radiation scare. But, I would still love to go to Japan anytime :)