十九：Review of Mr. Ramyun

PSY is that you?

As we all know, there are so many Koreans in Baguio because of the climate which is almost similar to their homeland. Mr. Ramyun is just one of those Korean establishments built to meet the demand of the Korean population there for Korean food and stuff.

Mr. Ramyun is a Korean cafeteria that serves Korean instant noodle dishes and other Korean foods such as kimbap, kimchi, Korean ice cream and other snacks. I am assuming they use the brand Shin Ramyun which is the most popular and best selling Korean instant noodles while here in the Philippines we have Lucky Me.

My friend and I were in a vacation in Baguio, it was lunch time and we were so hungry that when we saw this along the street going to Burnham park, we went ahead inside the cafetria.

The cafeteria looks like your typical Filipino carinderia (not the turo-turo type because there is nothing to point at) which is small with wooden panels, simple wooden tables and plastic chairs, no waiters, just a counter with their menu on a tarpauline hainging on the wall. Most of their patrons are of course Koreans. The price of their food is also cheap, 50 pesos for an order of the noodles with your choice of toppings and kimchi as your side dish. I think the priciest in the menu was 75 pesos which is the dumplings which looks like the Japanese gyoza to me but it was not available when we went there.

The noodles cooked in a little stainless bowl on, what looks like is, a sizzling plate and comes with kimchi as your side dish.

You can choose from spicy or non spicy ramyun, seafood ramyun, beef ramyun etc. After choosing your noodles, most of the ramyun dishes in their menu comes with your two choices of toppings such as cheese, egg, ham, dumplings, crab sticks etc. I think I chose the spicy seafood but it was not available to I chose spicy beef instead and I think ham and egg as my toppings.


Mmm... noodles..

The serving was of course fast (should I say it's almost, instant? *pun intended*). When you look at the dish, you can definitely tell that it's instant noodles but it tastes really good. They cook it in a tiny stainless pot and they serve it to you by just placing the pot on a sizzling plate. The noodles were firm and thicker than our local instant noodles. The kimchi also tastes good and it does compliment with the noodles. The spiciness was just right not too spicy and the soup not too salty. The spiciness of the noodles also compliments with the cold climate of Baguio. I thought the serving won't be enough for one person but surprisingly it made me feel full. (or maybe because I drank all of the soup?)

I was not able to take a picture of the place because there was a group of Korean children eating and I am not sure if I might offend them if I take pictures and by the way, the cooks of the cafeteria are also Koreans.

After eating my noodles, I tried one of their ice cream which was priced at I think 75 pesos. You can just choose and pick the ice cream from their chest freezer and pay at the counter. I have tried Korean ice creams before and I like them. I chose the one that I haven't tried yet and this one looks like a mochi ice cream. From the packaging it looks like it's green tea flavored mochi with red almost brown colored ice cream. I assumed it was red bean because those two compliments each other and I was actually right.

Mochi ice cream.

It has two mochi ice cream inside and comes with a small plastic knife or fork that you use to pick up the mochi.

Two is better than one!

I tried poking the mochi to see if it was rock hard because the other mochi ice cream that I've tried before needs to be thawed for about 5 minutes before you can bite into it or prepare to lose a tooth.

I then skwered the mochi with ease and bit into it and lo and behold it was soft!

Red bean flavored cream inside the mochi.

I thought my jaws were going to hurt chewing the mochi but it has just the right chewiness but I was kind of disappointed with the ice cream because it was more of like fluffy cream than the milky ice cream that I was expecting but it was still good. I tasted the red bean and it even has bits of ground red bean in it. I don't think there was food coloring in the filling because it was pale in color as if the red bean itself colored the cream naturally. You can also taste the macha in the mochi itself but it was not that bitter. It was a nice treat but I don't think I will be buying it again.

I never thought that someone would actually build a cafeteria that serves mainly instant noodles. Overall, Mr. Ramyun is a nice cheap Korean cafeteria and I think I can imagine myself eating there maybe more than twice a month if I was to live in Baguio. I think it's the counterpart of our lutong-bahay carinderia to the Koreans. I think I read on their flyers that they have a lot of Mr. Ramyun in Baguio so you won't have a hard time looking for one.