Ah, another ramen shop. I’ve always had a soft spot for the local store that peddles their own version of the classic comfort food. As someone with Japanese blood, nothing hits the spot than a perfect bowl of ramen. Delicious noodles, sinfully rich broth, melt-in-your mouth pork. Put them all together and you have a dish that will dazzle the tastebuds. Maybe even dehydrate you a bit. Well in any case, Maruichi has all the ingredients for success, but can’t quite put it together.
This one’s gonna be short, because not much can truly be said about a bowl of delicious ramen. It has to be tasted, savored. One can have all the best ingredients and it would still taste like the nasty nasty if they weren’t properly mixed. I ordered the Maru Ichi Ramen special and chose their specialty, the Kuro Ramen (literally meaning black ramen). The special comes with beansprouts, fish roe, egg, stewed pork, chashu pork, and nori. Kuro Ramen is special because it has browned garlic, which gives the broth its dark hue. I had a chance to order this before at the ramen museum in Japan and it was pretty fricking delicious, so I wanted to see if this place could get it right. Damn, not even close. Don’t get me wrong, the bowl was pretty good. The noodles were hand-made and the broth was tasty, but it was missing something. The essence of taste for a lot of ramen comes from the preparation that goes into each painstaking step of making that bowl hit the counter. Maru Ichi didn’t have it. There was no love in them noodles.
All this is unfortunate because Maru Ichi brings a unique take on ramen to the crowded Japanese food scene, but is unable to execute it. The ramen is good, but nothing that makes me salivate the way the Santa does. Make sure you bring the cash, because that’s all they take. The service is decent, nothing special, but it’s a ramen shop, so no complaints. The place heats up for lunch, so be prepared to wait if you’re out on Castro around noon. Probably one of the better ramen shops in Mountain View, but not in the Bay Area.
Maru Ichi
368 Castro St., Mountain View, CA 94041
650-564-9931
Don’t be tempted to order fish roe; it just melts away and makes your broth even saltier. Seriously.
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