I come to you with my head bowed down to apologize for the lack of posting. Here I naively thought work would slow down during the summer but this has been the busiest summer yet. I’ve had time to myself for about a month and it has been great. I’ve been resting and eating well, too well. I’ve got a whole bunch of pictures ready for blogging. Last weekend, I had an opportunity to cook for the Ronald McDonald House and it was a great experience. Stressful and hard work and took place in a hot kitchen during the hottest day of the summer but it was all worth it. What a great experience for a great cause.

I hope you all have been doing great! Plenty ramen shops popping open folks. Menya Musashi is the newest one of the bunch. When they had a soft opening, it was by invite only. That peaked my interest already so when I finally got to try them out this past week, I was expecting a lot. Maybe too much for a brand new restaurant. The vibe in the restaurant was a bit weird, my waitress was nice but didn’t seem to fit in with the other staff. Perhaps she was new and still training? By the way, they still don’t have gyoza. Their menu? SO MANY CHOICES. I’m hoping they get into their groove soon, I liked my food but not enough to go again anytime soon. I’ll give them a few months.

By the way, have I shared that they have no parking? There are a few stalls in front but they share it with a store and Nanzan Giro Giro (which I still really really want to try!). We didn’t purposely go on a Tuesday but thank God we did because that’s the day Nanzan was closed so I got a spot right up front! The waitress asked me how I heard about Menya because they have done absolutely no advertising. Boy are they right. You can barely find the restaurant on Yelp but that is how I heard about it so I gave Yelp the credit. The invite only opening made it so that they are not featured on the front page of Yelp and hides them a bit in the new openings section of Yelp. Okay, I’m not sure why I shared all this. Let’s move onto the food.

Here’s the condiments on your table: gari (red ginger), minced garlic, black pepper, a vinegar type sauce and tempura chips mixed with chili powder (if you want more spice!).

Kakuni Tonkotsu Musashi Ramen – $12.50

The Musashi version means you get all the toppings on your ramen. Will you take a look at that char siu? Doesn’t it look DELICIOUS? Well, it was. I’m sure it’s terrible for you but who cares…can you believe this one was mine? I didn’t go for the spicy one! That’s crazy but I wanted to try their original ramen to give a good critique. The soup did not have as deep of a flavor as I would have liked. There was just nothing special about this ramen that justified the cost or trouble to come here. I really hope they work on their soup broth.

Kakuni Spicy Musashi Ramen (Large Noodle Size) – $12.50 + $1

This was Connie’s bowl. I think if I came here again, I would do the Large size noodles too. The regular portion of noodles is kind of small. She thought this was fine but enjoyed the ramen she had at other places more than here. It all comes back to the broth.

Can’t post this ramen without giving you a proper shot of the egg. They do a good job with their egg, that’s for sure.

Garlic Shrimp – $5

They didn’t have gyoza so I had to try their garlic shrimp. It was pretty good, I liked that I could just chew on the whole shrimp, shell and all. I thought the shrimp was good but the sauce tasted a bit weird. I wouldn’t get it again.