I heard about Nomstar Ramen ever since they posted their first Instagram photo back in late August but it wasn’t until last week that we tried the different type of ramen from the restaurant. Previously Nomstar had 2 different kinds of ramen in their menu which was Black (shoyu) and white (shio). Unfortunately for Nomstar many customers reacted negatively with the menu, especially with the ingredients that they put in the ramen and most disliked the fact that the ramen’s broth was really tasteless.

Fast track to a few weeks after their opening, Scott the owner of Nomstar decided to scrap the menu and replaced it with a new one that showed Shoyu (soy), Shio (salt), Miso and Miso (Vegetarian) ramen. Yes, he also removed the broccoli from the bowl of ramen and dropped down the price by $2.

Nestled alongside other eateries at Waterford Plaza I visited Nomstar with my two friends, Erik and Jeremy. We were greeted with a huge murals, modern atmosphere, clean looking premise and friendly staff who passed on three menus to us.

We liked the look of the simple one page menu which made it really easy to decide on what we were going to eat. Erik went with Miso, Jeremy with Shio and I chose Shoyu ramen for that night. We received a plate of gyoza and on top of it we ordered two baos in spicy and non-spicy sauce and a large portion of chicken wings. The service was quick and we noticed that Nomstar provided free tap water for their customers.

The gyoza was so juicy and we all really liked it, no complaints with the price and the portion. The chicken wings were tender, glazed really well and sprinkled with sesame seeds. Unfortunately we couldn’t really taste the pork inside the bao and the sauce for spicy bao really overpowered the sweetness of the bun.

One thing that I like from the Nomstar Ramen is that they use the thin straight noodles variety for the Shoyu and Shio ramen then the wavy thicker noodles for the Miso. Next we judged the ramen based on the broth. Jeremy said that his Shio ramen was too mild in taste but he liked both noodle and thick chashu. The miso ramen was definitely more flavourful than the Shio but in terms of proportion it was a bit watery for Erik’s liking. I really liked my Shoyu ramen and it was perfectly matched with the 'melt-in-your-mouth' chashu. Both of my friends agreed that the Shoyu was the best out of all three broths that they tried.

I’m impressed at how Nomstar took the feedback around their ramen to heart and used those comments as the catalyst to move them forward and improve. I’ll look forward to more improvements and will be back for more ramen at Nomstar!