Slurpfest by Rising Sun Workshop: Chaco Bar Night

The 2nd night of Rising Sun Workshop's Slurpfest event is a collaboration with Chaco Bar. Chef Keita Abe's restaurant is renowned for 2 things: Great yakitori and insane ramen! Some of the best bowls in the city. Their ramen is by no means traditional according to Keita-san and that's not a bad thing. Most ramen in Japan are headed that way. Crazy or refined, as long as the whole bowl works and it delivers umami, then you've nailed it. This is something Rising Sun and Chaco have in common.

Snacks and drinks were provided by Rising Sun. Chaco Bar did 2 bowls of ramen and the options were either: The signature Fat soy ramen with bottarga yuzu karasumi gohan OR an octopus shabushabu, chilli coriander ramen with tentacle shime gohan.

Fat soy ramen with yuzu karasumi gohan

The first ramen is their signature fat soy with bottarga, yuzu karasumi gohan. I asked for the noodles to be cooked futsu (medium). Loved the pork and chicken broth with light and complex shoyu tare. The broth had heaps of umami with a light level of back fat. Toppings include tasty tender chashu, kikurage, bean sprouts, green onion, ajitamago and nori. This is still my favourite Sydney shoyu ramen to date. The idea of yuzu karasumi gohan with bottarga is brilliant. Transfer all your remaining broth onto the rice to soak up all the goodness of the shoyu broth. You get sweetness, umami and light smoky flavours playing on your palate.

Octopus shabushabu, chilli coriander ramen with tentacle shime gohan

Then there's the innovative octopus shabushabu, chilli coriander ramen with tentacle shime gohan. The noodles are a  little thicker. The broth is a miso gyokai blend of mackerel, scallops, shrimp etc. Then it's topped with coriander, kikurage, ajitama, octopus shabushabu, fish dumpling and a smear of chilli paste blend (sczechuan chilli, gochujang, habanero etc). The octopus shabu shabu that cooks in the broth was perfect and so was the john dory dumpling. Keita's inspiration for this ramen is a szechuan hot pot. It's not spicy at all, but the chili blend rather provides extra complexity. The broth got a tad salty with an umami overload at the end but adding to the rice fixes that. The shime gohan octopus tentacle and rice puffs mellows down the the strong flavours and distribute them evenly so that your palate is not overloaded.

Not only was Chaco Bar night amazing, it was quite educational too. It showed that there's no limit to what you can do with ramen. 

Here's a behind the scenes video of the night: https://youtu.be/uwjxiFFComA

See y'all next week for Cool Mac night!

Ramen Raff attended Slurpfest as a collaborator of Rising Sun Workshop.