Yamagoya Ramen, Publika, Solaris Dutamas, Kuala Lumpur (KL)

Address:
A2-G2-08, Publika Shopping Gallery,
Jalan Dutamas 1, Solaris Dutamas,
50480 Kuala Lumpur

Opening Hours:
Mon-Sun:
11:00 am - 11:00 am

Time Visited:
7pm, Saturday evening

Attire worn:
Casual

Item(s) Ordered (Photos taken as inconspicuous as possible with my phone):

I ventured into Publika and hunted high and low for something new to try. But after walking around aimlessly for almost 2 hours with a purpose but without a direction, I finally grew tired and decided to enter Yamagoya Ramen to try instead.

During my entry, it's already almost peak dinner hour and that was the mistake that I made. They were nearly full house and this place isn't lone diner friendly. Contrary to how Japanese establishments are, this one didn't have seats catered specifically for single diners. What's more is since it's peak hour, there weren't many places left and I was shown to a 4 seater table to sit at and since they showed me to sit there, I obliged. Their tables are quite unique covered in leather coverings that encourage your dishes not to slip and slide at all. This is great and I can only imagine the amount of effort put into maintaining these coverings. The owner of this place seems to be a Japanese as well whom I saw her approaching one of their customers whose a family and started speaking with the Japanese family. The rest of the workers seems to be foreign labor with them being well trained to greet properly in Japanese instead of the usual Malaysian type where they lazily slur the Japanese words and only say out the last 2 syllables in either a shouty manner or a very softly spoken way where only the person saying it can hear or if you're super close to their proximity.

At first, I wanted to try their curry rice to compare with Okonomi but then decided since this place is supposedly a ramen shop, I oughtta order a ramen and decided to typically order their signature which is the Mukashi Special Ramen along with an ice cold green tea. They took quite a long while to serve my order and when it finally arrived, it's presented in a manner that's a typical layout of ramen ingredients on a bowl. In the Mukashi Special Ramen, the ingredients consists of a seaweed, an egg, 2 chashu, bamboo shoots, strips of mushrooms and this is a rare sight for me but they serve bean sprouts in it too. There's also spring onions tossed in the mix. Their broth is soy based broth and I find that they've sorta localized the flavor a bit and it's quite tasty. On top of that, it does emanate saltiness but not to the level of how Japanese usually take their broth. Hence my take on why it seems localized along with the bean sprouts too. Their ingredients is a tad smaller than how I'm used to seeing in a Japanese ramen restaurant. Another indication of how it's sort of Malaysianized a bit even though it seems that it's run by Japanese.

Here's another thing why I felt it wasn't lone diner friendly. Halfway through me eating, they asked me to move to the table beside me to make way for other people to sit at my place. While I don't mind doing so, they could've at least helped me move by taking my bowl and drink and placing it on my new table instead of just keep asking me to move. I've given them ample time to move for me by me nodding in agreement that I will move but they did totally nothing and just showed me to the new table. -_- In the end, I have to move it my own self. Embarrassed being there, I hurriedly finished up my meal and headed to MORCO for a cup of coffee and cake.

Total Wallet Damage:
RM30.15. RM 24 for the Ramen, RM2 for the drink. Service charge of 10% and 6% of GST is charged.

Final Verdict:
6/10. Though their ramen may be quite nice, I don't think I'll be returning since it's not really lone diner friendly and I'm usually alone. I don't wanna be embarrassed and stressed again especially when it's a time for me to unwind and enjoy.