Description
Ramen Hayatemaru is a Japanese chain out of Hokkaido, where miso-based, Sapporo-style ramen is king. Apart from its regionally specific ramen and fantastic gyoza, the restaurant has a few other things that distinguish it. It's kind of ... fancy for a ramen shop. Classic jazz plays over the sound system. The tables are a touch sleeker than you might find at the regular strip-mall joint; the booths are basically private rooms built into the side of the restaurant; and there's even a tatami room, which is a rarity for ramen shops, and should be like catnip for the Noodle Disordered who might like to have a ramen-flavored birthday celebration in style.
Perhaps our favorite of the ramen choices on offer was the jjigae ramen, a Korean-Japanese mishmash with a spicy seafood-tinged broth, shrimp, flavored egg and ground–pork sausage. But in this ramen and others at Hayatemaru, the flavored egg was cooked a bit too hard, robbing me of that eggy magic that happens when a yolk is neither soft nor hard and therefore somehow becomes a part of every bite in the bowl.
