Ah, the old hole in the wall sushi bar. Hama has been a curiosity of mine since I moved into the Hollywood district and recently, I found out that they have a pretty extensive noodle menu. The red imperial lamps in the window, the railroad style interior, a sushi bar that takes up half of the restaurant---this could turn out to be a pretty sweet little ramen spot! Walking in, there are a few people seated with various dishes in front of them so they must be doing SOMETHING right... Here goes nothing.
I check the menu, the only thing that concerns me is that the word "Flavor" in front of terms like "pork bone", "soy", and "miso". This may indicate a spice packet, synthetic flavoring, or even MSG laced stock. I hack it up to a simple translation error and salivate at the surprisingly numerous choices which lay before me. When my waiter comes over, I ask him if they make their noodles fresh and he doesn't seem to understand what I am talking about. After some discussion with the chef in the back, he comes back to the bar and barks out, "Frozen." to which I am not particularly offended by. Frozen just means they were fresh at one time, right? I go with the Tonkotsu Pork Ramen for $7.95 and a side of sushi for $8.50.
So about 15-20 minutes go by and I have cleared my sushi and some edamame, which were of okay quality. Nothing off the charts. I see a large, steaming bowl leave the kitchen and I just about jump out of my seat to grab it. As it is set down before me I smell the faint aromatics of cooked pork and a sweet smell that must be coming from the yellow corn sprinkled over the soup. I notice immediately that the pork was boiled in the broth, and that the egg is hard boiled. Interesting. Enoki mushrooms and a cabbage-like leafy green top the cloudy, "pork bone flavor soup base"; something that lures me in, as I haven't seen Enoki on ramen in Portland yet. So far, I am rooting for this ramen to be an okay bowl but as I bite into my slice of chashu, I begin to wander down the solemn road of disappointment.
So to preface the utter anticlimax of this ramen, I will say that I (again) realize that this is a sushi bar, not a noodle bar. My purpose isn't to shame restaurants who don't primarily serve ramen by spotlighting their sub-par noodle menus. However, like I said in my harsh critique of Hana Japanese Bistro, if you are going to have noodles on your menu, DO THEM JUSTICE! A half-assed menu item is a half-assed menu item; it just so happens that I hope to illuminate every single bowl of ramen menu items in Portland. No one deserves a crappy bowl of soup, period.
So aside from the chashu being immediately recognized as boiled, the broth that everything in this bowl was boiled in (huge mistake off the bat) is pretty bland. I tasted mild notes of pork, but mostly water and (oddly) cabbage. Both the Enoki mushrooms and the leafy green are really chewy, a result of hard-boiling everything in one pot. As I dig into the cloudy "tonkotsu flavor" to find noodles, I see they too have been potentially boiled in the broth. Bummer. As I bring the noodles to my mouth, I am praying for them to save this bowl but they only drive the last nail into it's coffin. These noodles are so mushy and off-consistency that I could only take three forced bites before feeling nauseated. The texture was like European wheat pasta, overcooked and then left out to dry. Very odd. It's not the worst bowl of ramen I have ever had, but it is a close runner-up.
So here we are again, NoodleTimePDX... A little Japanese nook in Portland producing a sub-par, careless ramen bowl. Wtf, right? MUST there be a hip staff and TV on the Radio playing in a joint for it to produce good ramen? Thank goodness for Mirakutei, right? It's almost as if the silly American notion that ramen belongs alongside dishes like Kraft Mac n' Cheese and freezer burgers has affected the quality of ramen in legitimate Japanese restaurants. As demand grows for our favorite noodle soup, will the quality grow in places like Hama, or will it be up to a new wave of entrepreneurs to set the noodle straight?
NoodleTimePDX will be there to find out.
Rating
Broth: 3/10
Noodles: 1/10
Veggies: 2/10
Meat: 2/10
Noodles: 1/10
Veggies: 2/10
Meat: 2/10
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