Don Don Ramen at Don Too

340 Little Lonsdale Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Ph: 03) 9670 7113

I've never been to Japan, but I love ramen. This love of ramen started when I read Dan's post about ramen. He had gone to Japan for a holiday and fell in love with the stuff. I, from just reading about his description of ramen, also fell in love with it. It's moment like those that I never underestimate the power of a food blog.

When Dan came back to Melbourne, he started to look for good ramen here. He tried and suggested many places and I followed in his trail. From those suggestions, I've found good ramen at Momotaro Rahmen, Ajisen Ramen and Ramen-Ya. Recently, Dan suggested Ramen at Don Too, so of course I had to go and try it out.

Don Too has only recently opened their stores at night, and all they serve is ramen (hooray). The menu says that the broth is made meticulously in a traditional way, gentling simmering ingredients like chicken, shellfish and seaweed for hours. The noodles are made fresh everyday and you even get a choice of how much noodle you want, 250g or 300g. I chose 250g and even that was too much for me.

I ordered the Kuon Ramen, which consisted of charshu pork, seaweed, golden egg and beanshoots. Ling had the Miso Ramen, which had miso paste in the broth but otherwise was essentially the same. They also do two seafood ramens, one with pippis in a seafood broth (which I can't wait to try next time) and one with prawns, calamari and seafood in a tomato broth. Lastly, a fusion Laksa ramen also adorns the menu. Side dishes of either salmon sashimi, gyoza or salad finish off the whole menu.

The Kuon and Miso ramen broths actually tasted quite different. Both were good, but I think I preferred the Kuon one just a tad more. The pork wasn't as fatty as you usually get in other ramens, but it was still beautifully soft and flavoursome. I like the larger amount of seaweed I got and not too much beanshoots. Those ratios were just right I found, where as Momotaro Rahmen, it was the inverse. And lastly, how can you fault that egg. It was like a salted egg that hadn't been fully salted and then boiled perfectly. The noodles were a great bouncy texture and did not stick together at all. A final mention about the hot chilli ball they give you really has a brilliant hot kick as I like it and the gyozas were tasty too.



The restaurant is fairly small and cosy. The chairs and tables are a variety of heights and shapes and spread out quite randomly throughout the restaurant. It's good for small groups as there aren't too many larger tables to accomodate a large group. During that night, it was only about one quarter full so the noise levels were quite low and felt a bit sparse. I guess as more people find out about the place, it will fill up and have a good vibe. All in all, the restaurant serves a great ramen in a nice environment that I would go back for.