Kazan Ramen Express 火山らーめん, Lotte Shopping Avenue, Jakarta

Brought from Osaka, Japan, Kazan Ramen Express is the latest addition for the ramen shops in Jakarta. Literally means “Volcano” (Kazan), the shop brings unique ramen eating experience that resembles volcano, using hot stone bowl and special lid which releases hot steam from the top. For Indonesian market, they only serve halal chicken broth; while in their other branches in Singapore and Bangkok, they serve pork bone broth.

Located in the Food Avenue of Lotte Shopping Avenue, it has been opened since January 29th 2014. Kazan Ramen Express, despite of its location in the food court, actually has its own open kitchen concept where we can actually see what is going on behind the cashier counter. We could actually see the stone bowls were preheated before the ingredients were put into them. That time, Mr. K had the chance to talk to the Japanese manager, Mr. Takeyama, and according to him, they actually don’t have the shop in Japan, so apparently Kazan Ramen is a concept that is brought only for South East Asian market. This shop along with some other famous Japanese restaurants in Kansai area, Japan, (including Bikkuri Donkey Hamburger Restaurant!) are actually under the same F&B Group, Sunpark Co. LTD.

So, let’s talk about the ramen!

They serve both volcano ramen and standard one, which is probably a better idea if you bring children or buy some for them because the stone bowl is extremely hot. Each bowls are preheated until 300 degrees of Celsius prior to serving, the soup then is poured into it, cover with the lid and wait until the hot steam coming out (they call it “funka“, means “volcanic erruption”), wait for one more minute, then take the lid off. Begin stirring the noodle and other ingredients, and your ramen is ready! The best part is, you can enjoy it hot all the time thanks to the heated stone bowl!

 

The Kazan Ramen set comes with free bowl of rice, which I will share you later why. The ramen used chicken broth and there was the unmixed spicy miso on the side and also a delicious-looking chicken drumstick included in the bowl. We poured the soup, closed the lid for a while and after the steam came out, we took the lid off and wow, the soup was boiling like crazy. They use thin flat noodle, which is not really my favorite for ramen, but it was actually very good! The vegetables were very fresh and still crunchy when eaten. The spicy miso is “spicy” for Japanese standard, but it wasn’t for me, but the miso was real! I mean like, I really missed this kind of authentic miso taste and thanks God now I can come here if I crave for one!

Then, the rice. You can eat the rice just like that (with the chicken or the ramen), or you can eat it later by adding the rice into the soup to make a delicious “zousui” (soupy rice). But of course, it’s free to eat according to your own liking!

For the normal ramen, they have 3 options: Based, Standard or Special; with flavor options of Shoyu, Shio and Spicy Miso. The difference is just the ingredients, with or without eggs, seaweed, chicken drumstick. And we always have to try the simplest shio ramen whenever we go to any ramen shops, so here it is. The Shio Ramen used smaller noodle than the Kazan one, and I have to say that the chicken broth with shio (salt) only already tasted SO GOOD! I mean, it was so good that we literally drank the whole soup although we just finished some tummy-filling lunch somewhere else. It was rich, fragrant, a little oily (that’s how real ramen should be!) and just delicious.

Basically a nice experience and I hope I can visit their other branches in Singapore or Bangkok just for the sake of the tonkotsu ramen! <333 Good luck!