Ranita Ramen – Intense Food

Serious ramen at Ranita Ramen

We are going to start this story with a discussion of the Lucinda wine bar in Hobart. The reason why should become obvious shortly.

We have been enjoying the wine and food there ever since it opened. The owner is a personal friend and some of the wines are ones that we import from France.

It is a very popular venue, the food is excellent and there is also a few wines by the glass that are exceptional. There are many, many rare wines to order by the bottle as well.

What has this got to do with Ranita Ramen? Well, some time ago, Kobi, the owner of Lucinda, hired a Spanish chef, Javier, to do the cooking in Lucinda. This is no simple task as the work is carried out at the end of the shared table in full view of the patrons.

We got to admire Javier over the time he has been there for his unflappable disposition, his skill as a chef and his commitment to produce the best food possible. He always has been very good with the customers making them feel welcome in the space.

He has now, with his partner Zoe, opened their own ramen restaurant in central Hobart. We haven’t yet discussed with them why two Spanish people decided to open a restaurant at the other end of the world from Spain serving food from Japan, but we will!

The venue is in Liverpool Street, quite close to Straight Up Coffee and has a seating capacity of 9, so it pays to be there early. You will find it easily by noting the large “R” symbol on the window as shown below.

The menu is interesting and caters for both meat eaters and vegetarians as you can see below.

The meat based version (the one we both ordered) is based around a very flavoursome stock made from pork, chicken and dashi. The dashi, in turn, is usually made from kombu (kelp seaweed) and katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes). This type of ramen is often called shoyu due to the ingredients used here.

Making a stock of this nature requires a deft hand and an understanding in how to balance the flavours so that no one flavour dominates. Rather we look for each component contibuting to an harmonious whole. And this one certainly did.

Next we like noodles which are made from scratch and which when cooked, have a slight “springiness” to the bite. The texture of the noodles is very important and in Japan they usually use a special form of water called kansui which is an alkaline water.

The meats were also very good and the egg cooked exaclty as is required with the egg white cooked through and the yolk still runny.

You can see the result in the photo below.

In the first post about this delightful ramen bar we said we would return soon. The first time we tried the food here was just before we caught a plane to Melbourne, then Perth and then Adelaide before returning home to Hobart. On arriving here we virtually went straight to Ranita Ramen again to try the wonderful broth and noodles again – it was just as good, in fact even better on our second visit.

There is also a vegetarian option which you can see in the menu above.

And we have visited again for the third time since they opened, this time to try a spicy version with slightly different noodles with a firmer texture that we also liked a lot.

We should also mention here that there has been, on each of our visits, very good music in the background. On our most recent visit we listened to Paso Palante by Contento who are expats from Colombia, Para Elisa by Peruvian group Los Destellos, sisters Elia y Elizabeth harmonising Fue una Lagrima and Good to be back home with Chalie Bradley. A very relaxing yet interesting selection.

It is also worth noting that you can also order a bowl of rice to accompany your ramen. It is not just any rice but is the famous koshihikari rice, considered by many to be the premium Japanese rice.

There is quite a long and detailed article by the Sato family who make soy sauce for use in ramen dishes. They are well-known for their soy sauce because unlike most others, their soy sauce is made from 100% soy beans rather than the wheat which is used in many throughout Japan. You can read their article on ramen here.

There is another exceptional Japanese eating experience in Hobart at one of our favourite restaurants called Omotenashi which you can read about here.

We have a favourite restaurant in Tokyo where we go for a variant of ramen at, of all places, the Tokyo railway station, where people line up at a small venue called Rokurinsha in anticipation of a beautiful bowl of tsukemen.