Thursday, February 18, 2010

Cocolo Ramen

I fell in love right away in this tiny authentic Japanese "Imbiss". It feels as though it sprang out of mangas that I read occasionally. Let's start with the decoration. The owner created a portable cart to cook the ramen based on the ramen carts in Japan. Since the restaurant is fairly tiny, they needed a compact and mobile base of operation and the cart are perfect for it. After business hour the shop owner folds the cart and push it home. Talk about convenient here! Moreover they decorated the wall with Japanese flour sacks as wallpaper, which give it a very east-asian flair to the shop.

They have a very short menu. They serve Ramen: Tonkatsu, Shio, Shoyu, TanTan, Miso. And their appetizers are: Gyoza, Edamame, Kimchi and two different things that I forgot to take note of. One more thing, don't forget to order Calpico (fermented milk beverage similar to Yakult) to drink



Tonkatsu Cocolo Ramen

The Tonkatsu Ramen is delightful. The milky broth was full of porky taste and I love their bouncy noodle (QQ as a Taiwanese will describe it). Cocolo serve their ramen with crispy sea weed (that wilts as they absorbs all the porky soup), hard boiled eggs, and some shredded pickled ginger. I actually prefer my hard boiled eggs a bit on the raw side (I love me some running yolk), but I guess they are going to get trouble from the "Gesundheitministerium" if they serve it raw (because of salmonella and all). On the table, they also serve shimici togarashi (7 flavour chili powder), shoju, sesame oil and sesame seeds with their own special grinders (similar to those black pepper grinder tubes). When we grind our own sesame seeds directly onto the broth, the soup bursts with the aroma of sesame seed.

Their Tan Tan Mian, which originates from sichuanese dish "dan dan mian", was not spicy enough for my taste. I prefer the original dan dan mian from Tian Fu Restaurant in Uhlandstraße, but that's for another post

cocolo ramen


Cocolo Ramen
Gipsstraße 3
10119 Berlin
www.oliverprestele.de

a warm thanks to Steph L for introducing this Ramen shop

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