Notes about Dry Ramen / Tsukemen / Mazesoba
Mazesoba is mostly about toppings and has little broth, while tsukemen serves noodles and broth separately. In tsukemen, you dip the noodles in the broth as you eat, but in mazesoba, there’s little to no broth, and you mix the various toppings directly with the noodles.
WHAT WE ATE
- Spicy Dry Ramen (Mazesoba), 40/100 (5 June 2025, Woodleigh Village Hawker Centre)
Menya Horikawa is a new Japanese hawker stall at Woodleigh Village Hawker Centre, offering mazesoba — a dry-style ramen that’s still relatively uncommon in Singapore’s hawker scene. It’s a promising concept, especially for those curious about Japanese noodles beyond the usual tonkotsu or shoyu bowls. That said, while the offering here has potential, execution can be hit-or-miss depending on what you’re looking for in a satisfying bowl of mazesoba.
Spicy Dry Ramen (Mazesoba): 40/100
Noodle: 25/35
The noodles are medium-thick, just a touch thinner than the usual mazesoba type you find elsewhere. Still, they deliver a pretty satisfying bite. They’re firm, have a good chew without being overly springy, and carry a pleasant earthy wheat flavour. No weird alkaline taste either, which is a win.
Sauce: 0/35
This was a letdown. The dish looked promising but unfortunately leaned way too hard on Ichimi Togarashi for visual drama.
Quick explainer: Ichimi Togarashi (一味) is a coarsely ground Japanese chili powder made from a single type of dried pepper. It’s sharp and spicy. In contrast, Shichimi Togarashi (七味) is a complex blend with chili, citrus peel, sesame, ginger, and more—way more layered.
Here, the heavy-handed use of Ichimi (一味) completely overpowers the rest of the dish. The heat is aggressive and flat, drowning out any other flavours. It’s kind of like dumping Tabasco on pasta—spicy for the sake of being spicy, with none of the balance.
Beneath the heat, you can pick up a mildly savoury base with a touch of sweetness. So maybe there was potential? But if they really wanted to go bold with the spice, the tare underneath needed to be 2-3 times stronger to stand up to it. As it is, it just doesn’t work.
Meat: 10/20
The minced meat is actually not bad. It’s juicy and tender, but suffers from uneven marination—some bites are tasty, others feel a bit watered down. With better seasoning, it could have helped anchor the dish.
Topping: 5/10
Lots of things going on, but a few things stood out:
- A spicy paste ball that sadly gets drowned by the Ichimi
- Minced garlic—pretty solid
- Fresh crunchy negi (scallions)
- A really well-executed egg with a creamy, runny yolk that coats everything nicely and adds some umami sweetness
- Seaweed strands that bring in a bit of umami, but get lost in the mix
Summary: There’s a good foundation here—decent noodles, a solid egg, and alright meat. But the sauce just derails the whole dish. It’s a spicy overload with no balance, and that really sinks what could have been a pretty enjoyable bowl.
DISCLAIMER
One man’s meat is another man’s poison.
Find out more about our palettes and how we evaluate our ramen here. 😉
