Menya Appare, The Starling Damansara Uptown

Finally, Menya Appare at The Starling is open. This restaurant is located on level 3 of the mall, next to Foodie's Nest.

As you all know, I am a fan of ramen and I was looking forward to eating good ramen.

So I stepped inside one day and found out that they opened on Sunday 15-09-2024.

This is their soft opening and the grand opening is slated to take place on 12-10-2024 .

At the moment, the menu is limited with more items to be added in stages.

I was seated at the communal table (there are two islands of communal seating) and took my time to study the menu.

What delighted me was that you can exchange noodles for boiled cabbage. Restaurants are now more accommodating to diners who practice the low carb/ketogenic diet. Yes!

If you do eat carbs, you can choose half serving (60g) instead of the full portion (120g) of ramen. 

There are 6 types of tonkotsu soup. As for the ramen, not only can you decide on portion size, you can choose from thin, medium or thick and also the doneness - hard, normal or soft.

There are two serving types - Standard which comes with half ajitama and two pieces of 30g pork belly charsiew.

And Deluxe - one whole ajitama, one piece 30g pork belly charsiew and one piece 60g pork shoulder charsiew.

In addition to that you also get a big piece of seaweed. Clearly the Deluxe gives you more protein (60g in the Standard compared to 90g in the Deluxe and one whole ajitama instead of half).

Guess which one this madam ordered? Are you kidding? The Deluxe of course. I have to eat BIG.

I got me the Deluxe Spicy Tonkotsu Ramen with full (heh..heh..) portion of thin ramen cooked to normal doneness. I mean, it was my first visit, so I had to taste the noodles. 

I might have chosen a mild spiciness seeing that the broth does not look too spicy. But the broth was robust, very tasty and I was very pleased with my bowl of ramen.

The noodles were chewy, the way that I like it. I must admit that the full portion was quite a lot for me. I find that I am not able to tolerate as much noodles or rice like I used to.

The pork charsiew was firm to the bite with smokey flavor. Not too fatty though I would have loved more fat.

Whoops! One order of 3 pieces chicken karaage. Nice. Very nice. Don't ask me to compare with this one. They are different, both are good in my books. You would have to judge for yourself.

This was my free iced green tea, 

Well, that was a good experience and I revisited. On my second visit there were more diners (the top pic was taken on my first visit) as people have become aware of this restaurant.

This time I had the Deluxe Shoyu Tonkotsu Ramen with half portion of thick noodles.

The tonkotsu broth was thick and robust.

Needless to say, I cleaned my bowl (like I did the first time). And yes, I ordered the chicken karaage again.

Well, I am glad that there is a good ramen restaurant near me. I can visit anytime I want and next time you will see me with cabbage in place of ramen. Hah!