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Bantam King | Shoyu-Chintan ("Tokyo-Style") Ramen

Ramen 145: Bantam King | Shoyu-Chintan (“Tokyo-Style”) Ramen

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This mediocre ramen is microtransactional hell in a bowl.  Bantam’s angle is that everything in its restaurant only uses chicken, so there was no pork on its menu.  As such, I ordered their special shoyu chintan ramen, which was supposed to convey the punch of the aromatic chicken oil used in Tokyo-style chicken-shoyu ramen.

Nonsense.  Just about every place where a corner could be cut was cut, with each newly-created corner creating new opportunities for upcharges.  Because of this shop’s chicken-only premise, there was no pork chashu in the bowl, but rather just a few strips of roughly pulled, flavorless white meat chicken that looked like it could’ve come from a Costco rotisserie.  The tastier dark meat was being saved presumably as a leg-quarter add-on ($4) or for their Nashville Hot Chicken ($12).  Yet plenty of ramen shops have been able make excellent white-meat chicken chashu in their ramen; why not try so here?

In addition, everything was an add-on. The base bowl only includes: noodles, broth, some rando vegetables (more on that later), and the aforementioned strips of chicken breast. Other elements usually included in ramen shops (esp. in the US)–the menma bamboo shoots, the soft-boiled nitamago egg–required an upcharge of $1.50 each. That’s ridiculous. The menma was soft and lacking in pickled flavor, instead having vaguely been marinated with hot peppers, but it’s clear it’s been sitting out there untouched/unordered for far too long (probably because of the $1.50 upcharge). The nitamago egg was properly soft-boiled–a jellied center with no flakes of yolk but would’ve worked better as an ajitama for more flavor, but would’ve demanded more effort. Finally, the egg was small, probably medium-size. If this shop is going to charge $1.50 for a standard ramen-item, then it had better be a properly large (Extra Large-size, minimum) egg.
 

The rest of the bowl was mediocre at best. The shoyu broth wasn’t bad; the flavor was not particularly deep but it wasn’t thin and was fairly inoffensive. There was, however, no chicken-oil punch like the Tokyo-style chicken-shoyu ramen it supposedly was emulating. The noodles were purveyed from Nishiyama, but they were overcooked and limp in my bowl and unsurprisingly is the same noodle they use in all their bowls even though noodles should vary in thickness/style depending on the broth.

Finally, the vegetable toppings made no sense. Corn, which imparts sweetness, does not belong in a shoyu ramen, which is supposed to draw its sweetness from the shoyu. Corn belongs in Sapporo-style miso ramen, not shoyu. The roughly-chopped spinach parked in the middle of the bowl were nonsensical and disruptive, since spinach has a fairly robust flavor.  Most places, if they choose to use spinach in their room, choose to lightly boil it and serve like small bundles of firewood on top of the broth.  Chopped roughly and served raw, the spinach overwhelmed the palette with each bite and its texture didn’t complement anything.

This would be a mediocre/break-glass Tier 4 ramen based on flavor alone, but the nickel- and diming- corner-cutting and laziness takes it down to a Tier 5.
 
Q(ueue) Factor: None, 2000 on a weekday

Ambiance: Interior is adorned like a Japanese summer festival with yatai. Break out the yukatas.
Price: Shoyu Chintan Ramen ($12.75) + Nitamago Egg ($1.50) + Menma ($1.50) + Tax/Tip

Bantam King
501 G St NW, Washington, DC 20001
Chinatown-Gallery Place Station
Bantam King decorated for a Japanese summer festival