London Ramen Hunting: Matsudai, London Pop-up

Is Matsudai Ramen coming to your town? Are you wondering if it really lives up to the hype? Are you trying to find out more about the food, the menu, the prices, and whether it’s worth the trouble of booking with a £10 deposit? Then this blog post is for you.

Cardiff based Matsudai Ramen call themselves ‘Japanese-American-inspired proper ramen’. This statement confuses me; 1) what is ‘American ramen’? 2) what is ‘proper American ramen’?

But I am a hopeful person. Maybe they meant that they make good ramen and I’m always on a hunt for good ramen!

Matsudai was on a UK tour earlier this summer. A ramen joint on a tour selling ‘tickets’ and spreading tasty joy: a fun idea. We were not able to go then, but when they came back to London this month for another pop-up, we decided to give them a go.

Pre booking

I found out that the London pop-up will be in BFI’s Stephen Street Kitchen from October 21st to November the 6th, Thursdays to Saturdays only.

I wanted to know more about the menu and prices before committing myself to the booking system from hell that takes your £10 (p.p.) for hostage. The information I needed were no where to be found, so I called them and was very politely told that ‘not entirely sure, but a bowl of ramen wouldn’t be more than £15’ – very helpful. I thought in my head, ‘sir, you are opening in 2 days, you should know the prices of your ramens, besides, you are basically saying not-sure about people’s hard-earned cash that they’re going to be parting from for your ramen!’

Booking

You need to book via OpenTable. When I called Matsudai about the menu they said something about reservation slots going quickly and unsure if there still are places. I am writing this in the middle of their London pop-up weeks and there are plenty slots available until the last day. I’m not getting that tickets sold out within an hour vibe.

On OpenTable, once choosing your time slot, you only have 5 minutes to complete your booking, so type like your life depends on it. Also, stay healthy and don’t get ill or anything as no-show or cancellation less than 1 day in advance will be subject to a £10 charge, per person.

So much work already just for a bowl of ramen!

The Menu

BFI’s Stephen Street Kitchen is a nice venue and in a perfect location very near Tottenham Court Road tube station. We arrived and could finally see the menu, what joy!

Ramen in London usually costs between £10 and £15. So this is definitely on the expensive side. 12.5% service charge will be added to your bill.

The Ramen

C ordered the ‘i-e ke’ ramen (chicken+tonkotsu pork broth), and I vegetarian paitan ramen (paitan is a cloudy chicken ramen, but obviously this is a veggie version…).

C said his ramen was really tasty, soup refined, pork chashu excellent, noodles cooked correctly with nice chew. However, he felt that whilst it was tasty, it also felt a bit too ‘academic’. Too much thoughts and a bit less ‘soul’ and ‘ramen grit’. Or is this just an ‘American ramen’ thing?

My veggie ramen was also really good. It carried the creaminess and umami of paitan without being paitan which must be hard to achieve. The tofu slices mimicking chashu with a slightly bouncy texture and sweet sauce, I liked that attention to detail. However, the initial excitement subsided along with the temperature of the food – the noodles lost its flavour and broth begun to show more packet-soupy taste towards the end.

What really bothered me, was their strangely regimented system for serving their condiments. We were told that if we wished to add ginger, garlic or spicy sauce and such, as normal people would do in a normal ramen joint, we needed to ask for them once the food had arrived. Do you mean your condiments are not already in small pots, already on a tray, already ready to go to an individual table…? It all sounded too impractical and overly complicated, but we agreed to go with the existing system politely. And the existing system went something like this: you ‘order’ your condiments to a member of staff, each of your choice of condiments will then be carefully placed into a paper mini sauce pot by a member of staff, a member of staff will carry your choice of condiments to your table, by the time the condiments arrive, your ramen is nice and cold, and do I dare say… soggy…. This will cause another state of emergency in Japan where un-hot ramen is a huge cardinal sin, and don’t even mention the S-word.

Was it worth the hype?

To me, ramen is a people food and great ramen is made of two key components – flavour and humanity/humility, and I felt Matsudai was lacking in the latter. I wish one day I could taste a ramen so good that I can just go blind without thinking about the menu and the price at all – just turn up and be amazed… What I had in Matsudai this time, definitely was not that ramen. It was one of the really good ramen in the UK and one of the bottoms in the list of ramens I’ve had in Europe. Again, the word ‘humility’ comes to mind.

Will I go again to Matsudai pop-up? Most probably not as there are other ramen restaurants in London that are equally good, perhaps better, and less pricey.

Matsudai (London Pop-up)

Food: 4/5

Service: 3/5

Value: 3/5

Would I visit again?: 3/5

Ramen Authenticity Level: 4/5

*Ramen happiness Level: 3/5

*Sometimes a bowl of ramen brings your whole body and soul happiness and reminiscence regardless whether or not it being ‘authentically Japanese’.

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