11 April 2010

Zenya Noodle Bar ~ Japanese - Eastwood


Eastwood, the land of the long late lunch. And fish ice cream.

[LAST UPDATED APRIL 2013]


Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood

The clock on Eastwood Arcade is always set to midday because its always lunchtime in Eastwood.

Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood

We've had no breakfast and we've been lugging around boxes of books all morning for our (excuse the blatant plug) travel bookshop. The ramen cravings have set in. This is our third visit to Zenya Noodle Bar in Eastwood, and certainly not our last.

Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood

Zenya Noodle Bar is flasher than your average street food joint, a great place to bring a nervous eater. The place has a nice chilled vibe with dark mood lighting, but being food blog nerds we sit near the window where we can get some light for our photos.

Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood

We watch the old Japanese fella making the soups and get the impression has been doing it all his life. Or maybe he's an IT dropout\occupational slummer like me. Who knows, who cares, he makes a dang fine ramen. It's a pork based broth flavoured with soy above (sho-yu ramen), or miso as shown below. It's an excellent ramen: great broth, great noodles and great fixin's.

Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood

We have been on a mission to find the best ramen in Sydney which is much easier said than done. We find we like the noodles best at one place, the noodles at another, and the pork slices somewhere else, perhaps there is no one perfect ramen. What we need is a Ramen Dream Team: if we get all the different ramen chefs together we could create the perfect soup. I'm sure we could get a government grant for this.

Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood

Zenya could have a spot in the Ramen Dream Team with their beautiful soft boiled googie egg. This googie is supersoft, it has a very salty aftertaste, we guess from being marinated in soy or the like.

We pay for two ramens and get change back from $20. "Cheaper than McDonalds" the bloke at the counter says.

Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood

After a salty lunch we crave a sweety, so we head to the Korean Grace Oriental Grocery a few doors down.

Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood

On our trip to Japan we fell in love with Japanese ice creams, we think the Korean ice creams may be identical.

Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood

I just love this fishy ice cream, I first had one in Japan.

Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood

He is the coolest ice cream in the whole world.

Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood

And he tastes awesome, and thankfully nothing like fish. Mr Fish is vanilla icecream covered in wafer with a little sweet sauce which I guess is red bean.

Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood

Miss Chicken goes for the Korean green tea ice cream.

Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood

He tastes great and is a bugger to photograph. The ice creams are super cheap at only a $1.50 each, a perfect complement to ramen. How do they import an ice cream all the way from Korea and sell it for $1.50?

Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood


We find some Japanese chocolate for laters, it's a little darker than your Cadbury Dairy Milk, very nice. The guy at the cashier also takes the time to instruct Miss Chicken on how to cook the various noodles she has bought, what a nice fella.

[BACK AT ZENYA NOODLE AGAIN APRIL 2013]

We've eaten a hell of a lot of ramen since our last visit to Zenya in 2010, including a couple of trips to Japan, so we were surprised and ecstatic to find the ramen here even better than we remembered. It is top notch stuff with lovely broths and al dente noodles, all ramen nerds should give this place a whirl.



Kogashi-ninniku ramen - $11.80. A pork broth given a wonderful kick with slightly charcoaled garlic. That slightly 'burnt' flavour from the garlic is well balanced with the soup. Hats off to the chef. The soup is topped with bean sprouts, nori paper, dried mushroom, bamboo shoots, roast pork and a lovely soft boiled googie.



Negi-Miso Ramen - $11.80. Pork soup given a big sweet rich miso kick. Man we love miso ramen. Topped with the usual bits as well as some fresh finely shredded leek and corn.



We order gyoza and salad as a set. Love the salad dressing.


Zenya Noodle Bar & Grace Oriental Korean Supermarket Eastwood

After a stroll around, a little shopping, main course and dessert it is still midday in Eastwood, the land of the long late lunch.

Zenya Noodle Bar is at 217 Rowe Street in Eastwood, a menu is available on their website.

Go to Grace Oriental Grocer a couple of doors down for great Korean ice creams. That's an order.

Zenya Noodle Bar on Urbanspoon

5 comments:

  1. Hi!
    I firstly want to start of by saying I have just found your blog and have enjoyed reading through your post over the last few hours.
    I love Ramen and can never get enough :)
    When I was in Little Tokyo in LA, USA I had a dish called "Tan Tan Men" and it was amazing! The only problem is that I'm having trouble trying to find it here. Have you come across it in any ramen restaurants? I think it might also be called sesame soup ramen.
    Keep up the great posts :) I already have a great list of places I would love to try :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They serve Tan Tan Men at Ramen Zundo in World Square, and Ichiban Boshi in Galleries Victoria/ Bondi Junction is recommended too. Maybe give those a try and see if it is the same?

      Delete
  2. Great! Thanks you so much! I can't wait to give them a try :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Any idea if there places that serve vegetarian ramen? I really want to eat Ramen and can't think of any vegetarian place that makes it :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a tough question as most ramen soup bases are made from pork/chicken/fish stock.

      The only possibility I can think of is the vege salt ramen at Ramen Zundo - but I would be asking questions as to what's in the soup base.

      Delete

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