A tale of two ramen

My dad and I have started going out for ramen noodle soup sometimes on the weekends. It feels special because it is something that we do together.

The first ramen restaurant that we tried is Santouka. There are many locations, but we went to the one on Hereford St. in Boston. When we got there, we had to wait on line outside. I thought it was a good sign that there was a line because that means that lots of people want eat there. But this would not be a good place to go in bad weather. There are menus available on a bench outside the door and I liked being able to pick what we wanted while we waited. They also have fake plastic soups in the window so that you can see what the soup is going to look like.

The soup was very hot and came as a very large portion, maybe even enough for four people. I liked having extra soup to take home to share with my mom and brother and sister. I really liked the vegetables in the soup. The egg was soft and creamy and cooked with miso, which added flavor. We mixed it into our soup and it provided texture. The rice bowl with pork belly was also good, but I liked the egg and soup more.

I think this is a good restaurant for kids, but it might be hard for some kids to wait on line. And littler kids will definitely need help eating because the soup comes out very hot and the noodles are very long and can be a little bit tricky!

The second ramen restaurant that we tried is called Ruckus. The space is bigger and brighter than Santouka. We did not have to wait and sat at a bar similar to a sushi counter. There was only one other person in the restaurant who left while we were ordering, and then my dad and I had the restaurant all to ourselves, which I thought was very cool!

I ordered Shoryuken Ramen, which had pork neck in it, and my dad had Kake Udon, which had braised short rib. The food came very quickly. Udon noodles are thicker and shorter than ramen noodles, and I liked them better because they had more texture and taste.

Ruckus would not be a good restaurant to bring a stroller, because there are steep steps out front. But you might be able to leave it outside if you had a lock, or you could carry it up the stairs.

Overall I preferred Ruckus to Santouka because I liked the feel of the space more and thought that the soup had more flavor. But I thought that they were both good places to try ramen!