Bowl 156 ~ RaRa Chan - Eveleigh, Sydney.

 

Scott, Terry, Katie and the whole team from RaRa have been very busy since first launching their Redfern shop in 2018.

They quickly opened up another RaRa shop in Randwick, then a Vegan shop in Newtown (Lonely Mouth), and now shop number 4 in Eveleigh with a Tsukemen shop (dipping noodles) - RaRa Chan. 

Was lucky enough to be invited along to the soft-launch opening Sat 27th Feb to sample the goods, and wow - it was very, very delicious! 

The shop is an 8 seater "salary man" bar style little shop (there are extra seats for groups of the back and front). Super cool space complete with a real Boss Coffee vending machine, straight out of Japan! 

Tsukemen is a 'dipping Ramen', where the noodles are extra thick (when compared to regular ramen style noodles). They are cooked as per normal, and then rinsed intensely in cold water to stop the cooking process. They are then served in a seperate bowl to the soup, alongside regular ramen toppings, which is always very thick and viscous to bind itself to the noodles. You then take a mouthful portion and dip into the side broth, before slurping them up. 

Rara Chan has developed their own new in-house noodles for this using tapioca flour. 

RaRa Chan has two broth options; 

1 - Gyokai (fish) Tonkotsu (pork) blend. Served with pork belly chashu, whole tamago egg, grilled tomato, nori, purple onion, and menma. 

2 - Ebi (prawn) Tonkotsu blend. Served with ebi oil, pork belly chashu, whole tamago egg, topped with eby powder, menma, nori and spring onions. 

They serve each set with a hot stone that is popped into the broth bowl when serving to keep that soup extra hot when you are eating - very cool extra touch! 

Sydney does not have many places serving Tsukemen, so this is a great move from the RaRa team, and also the fishy flavours are new to Sydney Ramen eating palettes too - I feel the time is right now to be introducing these flavours and styles and I really think people are going to love this whole experience. 

Another great addition to the RaRa Chan menu is a clear Tokto style ramen - Chintan! 

This is a light and super refreshing, delicious alternative to the thick style. Broth made from a pork, chicken and niboshi blend. This ramen is served with RaRa's signature in-house Hakata style (think, straight) noodles. Topped with pork belly chashu, 1/2 tomago (egg), purple onion, nori, menma and snow pea sprouts. 

There are other snacks, including Pork Gyozo, Chicken karage, a vegan rice bowl, and also a chicken katsu curry.  

RaRa Chan opens Monday 1st March! 

Address: Shop 6, 1 Locomotive Street, Eveleigh.

Hours: Monday to Thursday (lunch only) 11am - 2:45pm. Lunch and Dinner also on Friday and Saturdays.