菱和 ryowa: desolation street (mountain view)

by rameniac | 18 Apr 2007

Sometimes you just don’t want to bother. On the other hand, when food is this mediocre, writing about it tends to be a lot easier as you’re less compelled to put any actual effort into doing the restaurant justice. Which, ironically, often results in more natural writing and an overall better post in the Strunk & White and Chicago Manual of style sense. Ah, the tragedy of it all.

Okay, here we go. Ryowa ramen sucks. I doubt I’ll ever want to go back there, ever again. The next time I find myself with an empty stomach, I’ll surely be headed over to Maru Ichi Noodle House, which is literally blocks away. If I’m jonesing for a lighter broth ramen, I’ll make the fifteen minute drive down to Kahoo Ramen in San Jose. Ryowa is thoroughly unremarkable and I’m not sure what the fuss is all about.

Depending on who you talk to of course. My Silicon Valley engineering gasket used to mention the place, years ago and before many a far better ramen shop opened in the area. Somehow the name stuck. “Ryowa.” So I figured I should give it a try.

“It’s really not very good. Used to be better. I think they changed owners.” When locals start prefacing a restaurant with such statements, especially while on the drive over there, you’d do well to shift gears and go somewhere else. Astonishingly, Ryowa fails even to live up to such prematurely lowered expectations.

Here’s what you will find on a weekday lunch hour at Ryowa: a predominantly Asian tech-industry clientele waiting out the door for a seat at the restaurant’s snaking double counters (the place’s only saving grace and, admittedly a brilliant conceit to ramen shop design). $8.00 lunch combos that offer a sampling of gyoza and fried rice coupled with a rather petite bowl of ramen in flavors such as “Ryowa sesame” and “butter corn.”

Would that they actually tasted like something. “Ryowa ramen” in the signature sesame soup is basically a funky, uninspired miso ramen with added sesame flavor. A little bit of goma goes a long way, and while roasted sesame seeds fare well as a crushed or sprinkled ramen topping, a soup born from it just doesn’t compute and comes off more than a little gross. There’s a reason most people put white pepper and not la yu (hot sesame oil) in ramen, despite it’s availability at every table, if simply for the gyoza.
Likewise, Ryowa’s touted butter corn ramen is a whole lot of odd, pairing a bland salt-based broth with featured toppings most commonly associated with Sapporo-style miso ramen. Creativity is forgivable; Sapporo’s neighbor to the south is Hakodate, known for their shio ramen, and who’s to say that a little northern influence is a bad thing? If only the soup were any good. If only it were more than a notch above simply salt and water - which is pretty much how it tasted - the only saving grace being a tableside jar of spicy green onion chili paste to mask the utter ennui of the experience.

At this point would it even be worth mentioning the generic egg noodles or the unmemorable chashu, a piece of pork I left half-eaten in the bowl? Ryowa gallantly attempts a sweep in all categories, with undercooked, mealy tasting gyoza (“I didn’t know it’d become so awful,” my friend said) and, suprisingly, a decent fried rice. But then again, you’d have to be pretty incompetent to mess up fried rice. Think they use yesterday’s leftover gohan? Think they even know what “gohan” means?