The Place Keisuke’s 10th outlet has opened at Orchard Cineleisure, with their focus now shifting to crab broth ramen – Ramen Keisuke Kani King. Located at the first level of the mall, with the restaurant taking on Keisuke’s usual casual-chic old school Japanese vibe, you can expect about 30 seats and possibly a long snaking queue given its prime location in the heart of Orchard Road.

After our previous raving reviews of Keisuke’s other concepts, Tendon Ginza Itsuki and Ramen Keisuke Tori King, we were excited to give this new concept a try!  Interestingly, we heard from one of the staff that the crab broth concept is customised and inspired by Singaporeans love for crab. True or not, we are flattered.

The Food Don’t expect crab meat in your ramen. In fact, Kani King serves Ramen in Crab Broth, with the broth made by simmering flower crabs (yes, the familiar 花蟹 you been eating since you can remember) and chicken bones for 6-8 hours for the Clear Soup option and for more than 8 hours for the Rich Soup option.

For first timers, we do recommend you to go for the Crab Broth Ramen Rich Soup with Flavoured Egg ($15.90). The first sip of the broth, if you are a crab lover, this will definitely be very satisfying and familiar. The luscious crab broth was unmistakable. Expect this to be served with 2 slices of the Pork Loin Chashu, and yes, everyone’s favourite Japanese Flavoured Egg. The Pandas were slightly greedy and went for the Crab Broth Ramen Rich Soup Special ($18.90) instead! Including the toppings above, the Special set comes with the 2 additional slices of Pork Belly Chashu, Seaweed, Bamboo shoots and Spicey Minced Pork – now this is the ultimate bowl you can have here at Kani King!

We didn’t get to try this, if you prefer the soup base to be less cloying, go for the Crab Broth Ramen Clear Soup with Flavoured Egg ($14.90). We heard you wouldn’t be disappointed too!

Now, if you are here with a partner, we strongly urge you to order this Kani Tama Ramen ($13.90) as well together with the Crab Broth Ramen above. This Kani Tama Ramen uses the same soup base as the Rich Soup ramen, with the only difference being the mixed fried omelet topping the ramen! I was more excited by this ramen, simply because it is my first time seeing a thick coat of fried omelet over the entire ramen. The fried egg certainly blended well with the ramen taste and crab broth, to the extent that I thought I was having crab omelet.

If you still have space, the Crab Tsukemen with Flavoured Egg ($15.90) was highly recommended to us by the staff.  It seems that Tsukemen style ramen is not so commonly seen and served in ramen restaurants in Singapore yet, but this fashion of dipping the dry ramen into the sauce (crab broth sauce here) has always been very popular in Japan!

Rants You got to be a crab lover to enjoy the ramen here, don’t you?

Will I Return Again? Yes, Keisuke has been able to re-innovate itself, with Head Chef Keisuke Takeda’s preference to avoid opening chain of outlets for the same concepts. Keisuke has been able to fill a void in the Japanese dining scene in Singapore thus far successfully, as evident from its Tendon concept at Tendon Ginza Itsuki. It is also able to redefine traditional cuisine into unorthodox concepts such as lobster broth ramen and crab broth ramen. Now, we are already excitedly awaiting for Keisuke’s next venture! Meanwhile, we are more than happy to return for that satisfying bowl of ramen.

TheRantingPanda says:
Taste bud: 4/5
Hole in the pocket: 3/5
Ambience: 3/5
Overall Experience: 4/5

Ramen Keisuke Kani King
8 Grange Road
#01-¬03 Cathay Cineleisure Orchard
Singapore 239695
Tel: +65 6262 6968

Opening Hours:
Monday to Thursday: 12pm to 3pm, 5pm to 10pm
Friday and Eve of PH: 12pm to 3pm, 5pm to 2am
Saturday: 12pm to 2am
Sunday: 12pm to 10pm

Ranted by The Ranter and The Rantee