Shin Yasaka, Neutral Bay

Neutral Bay is blessed with heaps of Japanese restaurants. It's no wonder that one of Sydney's leading ramen shops has opened a new branch north of the bridge. Shin (meaning new) Yasaka opened in the heart of Neutral Bay last Saturday, 2nd of July 2016. Yasaka's head chef Takeshi Sekigawa will be moving from the CBD shop to concentrate more on Shin Yasaka. 

Head chef - Takeshi Sekigawa

Besides from the space being smaller than the CBD joint, the menu is different too. You'll find a cut down version of Yasaka's ramen menu plus some new additions like the kakuni and chashu bao. The big difference will be in the broth. Whilst Yasaka CBD uses a pressure cooker to create their tonkotsu broth, Shin Yasaka uses a labour intensive two-pot method that creates a thicker and intense broth. The final broth is a result of combining stock from a pot with gentle boil and stock from another pot with an agressive boil. It's similar to Gumshara and Muteppou's gravy-like broth but with his own spin to it. Every broth is flavoured with either a shoyu, shio or miso tare of your choice. You're also given an order sheet to customise your ramen and order dishes with. The whole wheat noodles used in every ramen are still made in-house. 

I was invited to their opening ceremony ahead of the official opening day to sample some items from the menu. 

Their karaage chicken is a delicious version of this classic Japanese snack. It had a juicy, gingery and slightly sweet flavoured meat with crisped and doughy batter.

Shin yasaka ramen with extra ajitama

We were served with their house specialty ramen, which is the shin Yasaka ramen ($14) with extra ajitama (flavoured marinated egg). Toppings included double tender slices of chashu, green onion, menma and nori. The broth is like golden liquid! It was dense, rich and thanks to the shoyu tare, it had a deep pork flavour. The noodles were springy but slightly on the soft side. The ajitama was lightly flavoured with a runny yolk. I was really impressed with this ramen.

We also got to try their kakuni bao ($6.80), which is a buttery braised pork tendon in a soft pillow of half moon steamed bun. It also comes with a cool Yasaka stamp! 

I went back on their opening day to try another ramen and be one of the first 50 customers to get a free No Ramen No Life sweater!

Gyoza

Karaage chicken

Calpis

Spare rib ramen

I had their spare rib ramen ($22) with extra chilli pickled cabbage and ajitama topping. Hot damn the pork spare rib was massive! The tender fatty meat was braised for hours and then flame seared before serving. I asked for the same shoyu tonkotsu broth and on the sheet I chose: normal taste with thick consistency. The broth came out the same as the shin yasaka ramen from the opening ceremony but was a little less thick. I asked for an extra topping of chilli pickled cabbage to cut through the richness. I preferred the noodles this time around as it was more springy. 

Just like the CBD shop, Shin Yasaka does pretty amazing and solid ramen. There's still some hiccups with the way the ordering system works but since they are quite new, I'm sure it will all be sorted out soon. 

Disclosure:

Ramen Raff was invited by SD Marketing Global as a guest of Shin Yasaka for the opening ceremony.

Ramen Raff paid for food and beverages on the second visit.

Shin Yasaka

161-163 Military Road

Neutral Bay NSW 

Opening hours

Monday-Sunday

Lunch: 11:30am to 3:00pm

Dinner: 5:00pm to 9:30pm