Taipei Restaurant – Nagi 凪の Taiwan, awesome Ramen!

Nagi has a total of 6 stores in Taiwan, 5 of which are in Taipei, with the other 1 in Taichung. What you should expect here is a deliciously heavy ramen flavour born in Tokyo and expanding across the world. Headed by Master Ramen Chef Satoshi Ikuta, the goal of Nagi 凪の is to bring Ramen to the world. A tall order? He doesn’t seem to think so. Nagi 凪の currently has over 35 stores scattered all over the world. Having only opened in 2004, 35+ stores in 18 years Is pretty good going.

Nagi over in Ximen tends to be one of the slightly quieter ones, so that’s where we went. Located above the big Uniqlo in one of the many shopping malls in Ximen, Nagi offers up both English and Chinese versions of its menu ordering system. Check out their menu online before you get there. We’ve been to Nagi a bunch of times before, but it really never gets old.

‘The Red King’ is described as “A striking blend of garlic, chilli oil, and cayenne pepper in a velvety broth; topped by a tempting ball of miso-infused minced pork and select Nagi cayenne, with tender chashu.” on Nagi’s 凪の website. Honestly, I couldn’t have said it better myself, and I enjoy writing about food! So imagine all that above, then topped with a big chunk of delicate pork.

We couldn’t resist but to go for a bowl of the limited edition ramen this time, too. It was tomato ramen, yum! However, on Nagi’s website, it says “We launch new “Limited King” ramen varieties to highlight our creativity and push the (delicious) boundaries. We’ve featured over 1,000 varieties of Limited King ramen since day one.”. Basically, this just means that every time I go back I can pretty much have an innovative bowl of ramen.

What we ordered at Nagi:

The Red King

Anything that has ‘king’ or ‘queen’ in the title should be good, and this red king from Nagi is absolutely no different. As explained above, the chilli oil and miso come through as two of the overwhelming flavours in this bowl that have gone a long way to making Nagi as popular as it currently is for a reason. Look at that ice cream-dollop-like ball of chilli and pork mince on top. I mean, once you mix that in, the flavours just hum throughout the bowl.

As if the heavy chilli and miso flavours aren’t enough, this pork chunk is about to knock you sideways. Bite down and the silky smooth fat gives way to succulent pork with an almost caramel-like flavour. Seriously, Nagi, how are you doing this? Be aware before you order this, though, that it is a very heavy flavour throughout. If chilli and miso aren’t your things, then I suggest you go for something else. But if heavy flavours are for you, then look no further than The Red King.

Limited Edition – Tomato Ramen

By the time you read this, the limited edition Tomato Ramen may no longer be available. But, trust in Nagi that another excellent limited edition will definitely be available.

This Tomato Ramen oozed class, tomato flavour, and delicious levels of depth throughout.

The tomato base was not the soothing, calming tomato flavour that you might expect in something such as a cream of tomato soup or even a lighter beef noodle soup of some kind. No. This tomato flavour is mixed in with LOADS of garlic here at Nagi, and it’s bloody great.

So you get 3 slices of this Char Su pork here at Nagi, which is great. But, I’ll be honest, I would rather get 1 chunk of pork like the above, than 3 slices of this Char Su. There was nothing particularly wrong with the char su, but it just isn’t the silky and succulent deliciousness of the pork in The Red King.

We always order noodles on the harder side. I like al dente food. The noodles are consistently cooked really well here at Nagi.

It’s my (un) guilty pleasure to more often than not order the Char Su pork bowl whenever I go for Ramen. Is it excessive? Maybe. Is it delicious, almost always. This Char Su bowl from Nagi is pretty good, but not my favourite. I would say that Totto Ramen do a slightly better one, and this ramen store near Zhongshan Elementary School MRT Station does one that is worth going to the restaurant for, alone (like, seriously, I didn’t like their ramen).

To be clear, there was nothing fundamentally wrong with this Char Su bowl from Nagi. It just didn’t ‘wow’ me as others have…