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Ramai Soup Curry, Chuo-ku

Staff Rating:

+81 112110697

Nishi juitchome Station, Tozai Lin

Minami 4 Jonishi, 10 Chome−1005-4 コンフォモール札幌１階, Chuo-ku

[see on the map]

As our list of Sapporo soup curry restaurants grows, we bring you a first-hand review of the Ramai Sapporo Chuo Soup Curry shop, located in Chuo-ku, Sapporo. While the soup curry was tasty, the meal would be more comfortable if Ramai would allow the staff to serve the customers, instead of the super noisy robot and all the screens.

The Asian Bar Ramai brand has many stores; there are at least three in Sapporo, several more in Hokkaido, and some outside of Hokkaido. Each store has a slightly different name. In this case, the Ramai Soup Curry Chou-ku shop is called Ramai Sapporo Chuo Ku. It is located a short walk away from Nishi Juitchome Station, or about 10 blocks west of Sususkino Station. This Ramai is the closest shop to Sapporo’s downtown area.

We had previously tried the Asian Bar Ramai Higashi Soup Curry, and really liked the flavor. We already knew that Ramai makes good soup curry, and we were eager to try the more central, Chuo-ku shop. It was, however, a disappointment.

Because soup curry is so popular in Hokkaido, we arrived early, and on this day in the middle of March, we were the first in line. By the time the shop opened, there were about 10 other guests waiting (mostly locals).

It is my opinion that Ramai really loves technology, more, it seems, than soup curry. Their fetish for tech has become the focus of this review.

So many screens. There is a screen system to get your place in line. A different one to order. Another screen to check out. Every screen makes the experience less like serive and a restaurant, and more like a dealing with a vending machine.

Because I was the first in line, they walked me right past the check-in screen, and brought me to a seat towards the rear of the restaurant.

While the interior of their Higashi shop is like a dark, “soup curry cave,” this Chuo-ku Ramai is bright, built with high-quality materials, and much nicer. I was genuinely excited to sit down, and enjoy a meal.

High ceilings. So much wood, tall, vertical beams, all carved to create the “island” feel that is a one part of the Ramai “Bali” experience.

This layout of the shop is designed to put each customer, or group, in their own semi-private area. As a single customer, instead of a shared counter space, I was delivered into a “soup curry phone booth,” like a “counter for one” with walls, and a curtain.

Music played overhead that was sometimes almost like new age jazz, but more often like a poorly produced, repetitive beats from a 8-bit video game.

As I sat in my soup curry cubby, I was expecting they’d bring me the electronic tablet menu, but I noticed there was an actual physical menu on the wall.

While the digital menu only shows four choices, the menu stabled to the wall of my cube listed at least eight choices of soup curry. The digital menu shows Vegetable Soup Curry, their Buhhi (Sliced Pork) Soup Curry, their (braised, slow cooked) Pork (Belly) Soup Curry, and their Chicken Soup Curry. The menu on the wall adds four additional choices; an Udan (Two Shrimp Tempura) Soup Curry, a Takh Goreng (Deep Fried Tofu) Soup Curry, a Beef Soup Curry, and a Fish Fry Soup Curry.

If you use their “little kid computer” to order, you have half as many choices as the simple, one page, physical menu. Once again, restaurants trying to make customers order via a screen, once again creating an inferior experience, in this case that literally gives the customer fewer choices.

When we wrote our review of Ramai Soup Curry in Higashi-ku, we talked about the Buhhi Sliced Pork Soup Curry (it was excellent). If I knew that this Ramai had Beef Curry on the menu, I might have tried that. From the four options on the screen, I opted for the Hokkaido soup curry classic; the chicken.

Chicken Soup Curry: Slow cooked chicken is a staple on Ramai’s menu.

That chicken comes with a full complement of vegetables.

Basic Vegetables Included in all Menu: Pumpkin (Kobocha), Eggplant, Bell Pepper (Pimon), Cabbage, Lotus Root, Asparagus, Green Beans, Carrot

Ramai’s vegetable selection is excellent. That list of vegetables is similar to what Garaku calls the G-Set, but Ramai offers more variety of vegetables than you’ll find at the other shops.

For toppings, I wanted to add some cheese, just to see what that was like. But because you have to order from the screen, I didn’t know if the cheese would be in the soup? Or on the rice? Because it is a screen, there is no one to ask.

I added a Bintang Indonesian beer, and placed my order.

I was expecting a nice, comfortable lunch. In fact, I was about to take out my book and read a few pages, when… this loud music suddenly starts playing. Obnoxious; like when someone with a musical ringtone on their phone gets a call in a doctors office. It was getting louder, somehow moving closer to my table.

Finally, this miserable robot arrived next to me, with that super loud song combining with the music playing overhead. So much noise.

At my table, the alien played some message over a speaker, rotated around, and there was my beer. It stayed at the table, repeating some message again and again before it left.

Welcome to the future. I’m sure for many people, the novelty and spectacle will be exciting. For my part, it was a tacky, noisy, inhumane, a loveless part of my lunch.

But it wasn’t over: As I was the first person seated, the robot delivered my drink first. And then, again, for every other order, each time playing that anxious, tropical circus song, again and again, for every table, making what could be a peaceful lunch feel like a cheap pachinko parlor. The whole mess is completely tasteless and crude.

I wanted to leave, but I waited for the soup… and had the pleasure of hearing that thing roam around for the entire meal. Absolutely miserable.

A few minutes later, a perfectly friendly human comes by, and delivers the soup curry, making it painfully obvious that the screens and robots are not necessary at all.

Anyway, let’s talk about the soup.

There is the Ramai Chicken Soup Curry, with a serving of cheese.

The soup curry was good, maybe an “8” out of 10. Under the cheese and vegetables was a nice serving of slow-cooked chicken (leg and thigh). I was in a terrible mood by this point, and was rushing through the meal.

Tasty, but for chicken soup curry in Sapporo, I like Garaku better. If I was to come back to Ramai again (and I definitely won’t), I’d order the sliced pork Buhhi Soup Curry instead (it’s better than the chicken).

The cheese did arrive on top of the soup. As it melted into the dish, it was a nice addition, contributing a soft, creamy comfort to a dish that is already peak “comfort food.”

The vegetables are fresh, not too greasy (some are fried), and an excellent part of how Ramai does soup curry.

Another unique thing about Ramai is the thin-sliced onions in the soup. In my review of Ramai’s Buhhi Soup Curry, I wasn’t sure if the onions were part of the pork, or a part of the preparation of the broth. As I ordered the chicken this time, I can say for certain that the onions are a part of the soup. They add both both texture and taste.

The broth is very good. I usually take my time, and use a spoon to enjoy the broth, but in this case I couldn’t wait to leave.

Throughout the meal, I felt the persistent contrast of the elaborate artifacts from Bali versus the technology. For a shop that has invested this much in an “island” vibe, the infusion of robots and screens is an absolutely bizarre choice.

Using one of two screen on their yellow robot, they have an image on the front picturing a young Indonesian girl. In the picture she is maybe 10? Awkwardly posed, with an artificial smile, I imagined her as child labor, somehow trapped in the machine.

Ramai Sapporo Chuo takes an interior atmosphere that was probably once almost sensual in it’s use of wood, emphasis on private spaces, and Balinese decor, and has reduced it to tense, beeping chatter of an electronics shop. No longer a proper restaurant, it was like being in an old school video game arcade, but where the games get up and run around the shop after you.

If a person seats you, and hands you the screen you used to order, and comes back to take the screen away (after you’ve ordered), and brings you your food, and clears the plates and cups afterward, what is the point of having a robot at all?

In between the patrols of the bot, I could hear the sounds of other diners. Human sounds, laughing and talking. Those sounds fit our nature; they are both comfortable and communal. And then, again and again, the soundscape would erupt into the overly-loud, cartoon disco from the robot, and the humanity was gone.

As you complete your meal, Ramai offers you a final helping of screens and flashing lights, as you check yourself out.

Not long ago (and available still, at better soup curry restaurants in Sapporo), you might finish your meal with a smiling human helping you pay your bill, and thanking you for coming. But not at Ramai; in this shop, your final impression has all the warmth of paying your fee in parking lot.

Just think of the all the money the owner must be saving? Isn’t that great? If he could just get rid of all the rest of the staff, think about how much more profitable he could be. How is that for a demonstration of his sense of “hospitality.”

Ramai has taken a location that has the potential to provide a mild kind of luxury, and cheapened it to where it feels more and more like a low-budget casino.