WHAT WE ATE
- Champon – 80/100, Nagasaki
Daihachi in Nagasaki is famous for its Champon, a hearty noodle soup with roots in Chinese cuisine, created for Chinese students in the early 1900s. Unlike traditional ramen, Champon’s toppings—pork, seafood, and vegetables—are stir-fried in lard before the noodles and broth are added, allowing everything to cook together and soak up the broth’s rich flavors.
The noodles, made specifically for Champon, add a unique texture. The broth, made from chicken and pork bones, is poured over the stir-fried ingredients, creating a robust, flavorful soup.
Daihachi’s Champon is known for its authentic taste and generous portions. If you are looking for Nagasaki Champon, this is a highly rated store that’s not that far from the main train station.
Champon: 80/100
Noodle: 25/35
The noodles are thick, rounded with a flat-ish oblong shape, resembling a bloated version of fettucini or the Chinese “meepok.” They are not very dense and have a nice springy texture. The bite is squishy yet clean, and they do not stick to the teeth. Additionally, the noodles have a subtly earthy wheat taste.
Soup: 30/35
The soup is milky in both color and taste. It has a nice mellow sweetness and a lingering “wok hey” taste, reminiscent of the familiar “hokkien mee” in Singapore. This combination of milky sweetness and woody roasted aroma makes for a memorable meal. However, towards the end of the meal, the alkaline taste from the noodles starts to seep into the soup once they become bloated from prolonged soaking, so it’s best to finish your meal without sitting on it too long.
Meat: 15/20
Instead of large slabs of chashu, you’ll find small but tasty scraps of pork meat. The meat is soft and tender, and the fatty parts are remarkably juicy. As all the ingredients are stir-fried together in a Champon dish, the meat exhibits the same woody wok roasted aroma.
Topping: 10/10
Other toppings include fish cake, cabbage, bean sprouts, squid, and clams. The ingredients are all stir-fried, and the delicious savory sweetness and wok roasted aroma is present in all of them.
DISCLAIMER
One man’s meat is another man’s poison.
Find out more about our palettes and how we evaluate our ramen here. 😉
