Tamoya

C says:

Tamoya opened a couple of months ago in Liang Court – the first overseas outlet of a Japanese udon chain from Sanuki. In addition to offering hand-made udon, they also offer a variety of tempura.
 
The place is actually pseudo-fast food style – you place your order, and either the udon is prepared and served immediately, or you take a number, pay first and it’s served to you once it’s ready. My sliced pork udon soup was ready on the spot, but A’s Kama-tama udon – hot udon served with raw egg, to which you add a hot soy-based broth – took a while. I was a bit puzzled, since I assumed that would actually have entailed the least amount of cooking…
 
You can opt for either Kake or Bukkake style for your soup udon. Kake is a lighter, clear broth, whereas Bukkake is a heavier, soy-based broth.

Almost everything is self service, from the disposable cutlery to the various udon condiments like the spring onions, wakame and tempura batter bits. The tempura batter did make the broth slightly oilier, but overall I really liked the pork udon. The broth was tasty, the pork was tender and slightly sweet, which played nicely against the savoury broth, and the noodles had a great chewy texture.

A’s Kama-tama was slightly underwhelming when it first arrived, even after pouring in the Bukkake broth. After adding quite a lot of the condiments though, the final concoction turned out pretty good. Still, I’ll stick to my classic soup udon.
 
From their tempura section, we picked a shitake mushroom and an eggplant one. These are not fried to order – they are placed under heat lamps along the counter, you pick the skewers you want and pay together with the rest of your meal. This doesn’t come with the traditional tempura dipping sauce, and there was a bit of confusion when I asked the servers about it. In the end they just dished out a portion of the Bukkake broth for me to use as a dip. These were ok but I may pass next time.
 
If you opt for the regular sized udon, portions are quite small and perfect for a light meal, or if you’re like us, a snack before we made our way downstairs to Ryoshi Sushi for a few plates of sushi as our second meal…

A says:
 
The regular portion of udon is cheap but tiny. Which is good if you want a lot of tempura (which is pretty good) or go somewhere else for a second meal.

Tamoya
117 River Valley Road
#01-32 Liang Court
Tel: 6377-0301
Open daily: 11 am to 10 pm
www.tamoya.com.sg