Nomstar Ramen

Nomstar opened in mid 2015 and unfortunately received quite a bit of negativity towards their menu, prices and the overall flavour of their ramen. But instead of letting this get them down, owner Scott and his team revamped their offering and worked hard to improve the quality of their ramen dishes. I was looking forward to seeing whether their mission to change had resulted in a quality product.
The pork gyoza (5 pieces for $ 7.00) was first to come out to the table, and looked really delicious. The pastry was thin and while the folds weren’t the prettiest I’ve seen, the crust on the outside was impressive and delicious.
The filling was stuffed to the brim with pork, with notes of ginger and spring onion cutting through the meatiness. I liked that as we bit down, the juiciness of the filling gushed out providing an even tastier mouthful. This was a great way to start our meal at Nomstar.
For his bowl of ramen, my partner chose the Shoyu ($ 14.00), which is a soy based dish. Comprised of homemade thin ramen noodles in a shoyu tonkotsu broth flavoured by a special blended soy sauce, this bowl was topped with chashu pork, ajitama egg, cabbage, menma bamboo shoots, spring onion and toasted seaweed.
Of the two ramens we tried, this was our favourite for the evening with the salty soy flavour umami rich and full of porky goodness. It wasn’t as flavoursome as I was hoping, but still hit the spot.
I liked the thinness of these noodles, which contrasted with the thick slices of that melt in your mouth chashu. I would have liked to see a runnier egg yolk as I thought this was a bit too set (and really would have liked a whole egg… but that’s because I do love those little protein balls so much).
My choice was the miso ramen ($ 14.00). Full of homemade ramen noodles in a miso tonkotsu broth, this was topped with chashu pork, ajitama egg, cabbage, sweet corn, bean sprouts and toasted seaweed. Mmm how good is corn in ramen! Though not for everyone, I’m quite a fan of those little sweet pops of flavour, and the way they contrast so much to the saltiness of the other ingredients.
The miso ramen has a thicker ramen noodle, which I enjoyed the al dente texture. There’s something really quite special about homemade noodles — the texture and flavour is so much more enjoyable, and it is a testament to restaurants who go this extra mile.
My broth was not quite as flavoursome as the shoyu, and was slightly more watery — but the salt factor was quite strong. While I enjoyed it, it didn’t quite reach the high of my partner’s. Lucky for me, he didn’t mind me digging in and slurping up his leftover broth!

I’m not sure what possessed me to eat ramen for lunch on a 36+ degree day but crazy me did just that. I had wanted to try Nomstar for some time and so I feel kinda horrible rating them 2 stars.
Upon being seated, the first thing I noticed on the menu were chicken wings, which we decided to order, as well as the Shoyu and Miso ramen. The Shoyu didn’t come with corn, and it wasn’t an «extra» option on the menu either, so asked the waitress if I could get corn with mine. The waitress was lovely and put the order in. About a minute later, she comes back out to say they don’t have chicken wings. Major sad face panda moment…
The ramen came out promptly and as soon as I tasted the broth, my sad face became ever sadder. The broth was lukewarm and lacked any flavor punch. Lukewarm soup is so uninviting. The chashu pork was cooked nicely as was the ajitama (flavored, soft boiled) egg but on a whole, it was just really average.

I heard about Nomstar Ramen ever since they posted their first Instagram photo back in late August but it wasn’t until last week that we tried the different type of ramen from the restaurant. Previously Nomstar had 2 different kinds of ramen in their menu which was Black (shoyu) and white (shio). Unfortunately for Nomstar many customers reacted negatively with the menu, especially with the ingredients that they put in the ramen and most disliked the fact that the ramen’s broth was really tasteless. Fast track to a few weeks after their opening, Scott the owner of Nomstar decided to scrap the menu and replaced it with a new one that showed Shoyu (soy), Shio (salt), Miso and Miso (Vegetarian) ramen. Yes, he also removed the broccoli from the bowl of ramen and dropped down the price by $ 2.
Nestled alongside other eateries at Waterford Plaza I visited Nomstar with my two friends, Erik and Jeremy. We were greeted with a modern atmosphere, clean looking premise and friendly staff who passed on three menus to us.
We liked the look of the simple one page menu which made it really easy to decide on what we were going to eat. Erik went with Miso, Jeremy with Shio and I chose Shoyu ramen for that night. We received a plate of gyoza and on top of it we ordered two baos in spicy and non-​spicy sauce and a large portion of chicken wings. The service was quick and we noticed that Nomstar provided free tap water for their customers.
The gyoza was so juicy and we all really liked it, no complaints with the price and the portion. The chicken wings were tender, glazed really well and sprinkled with sesame seeds. Unfortunately we couldn’t really taste the pork inside the bao and the sauce for spicy bao really overpowered the sweetness of the bun.
One thing that I like from the ramen is that they use the thin straight noodles variety for the Shoyu and Shio ramen then the wavy thicker noodles for the Miso. Next we judged the ramen based on the broth. Jeremy said that his Shio ramen was too mild in taste but he liked both noodle and thick chashu. The miso ramen was definitely more flavourful than the Shio but in terms of proportion it was a bit watery for Erik’s liking. I really liked my Shoyu ramen and it was perfectly matched with the chashu. Both of my friends agreed that the Shoyu was the best out of all three broths that they tried.
I’m impressed at how Nomstar took the feedback around their ramen to heart and used those comments as the catalyst to move them forward and improve. I’ll look forward to more improvements and will be back for more ramen at Nomstar!