Izakaya in Central Wet Market

Recently, we had the chance to try a Japanese izakaya in the Central wet market.  It was formerly a fresh juice and soup stand that had been replaced a few months ago by this cheerful little front:

I particularly like the big thumbs up sign

We sampled their curry rice and ramen, as well as various deep fried small plates.  The bacon wrapped tomato skewer seemed pretty good, robust and still juicy.  The pork skewer was small and too dry - it tasted like jerky.

Pork and bacon wrapped tomato skewers, breaded and deep fried

The oysters were succulent and briny, perfect with a spritz of lemon and plum sauce, however, they had been fried for too long.  The breaded shells were a little too hard and crunchy for my liking.

Deep fried oysters

I quite enjoyed my main entree.  The broth was well layered, with a toasty basil top note, velvety tomato middle note and satisfying pork underlying note.  The buckwheat ramen noodles were perfectly cooked.  I could have done without the pieces of bacon, but they did not detract from the overall presentation.   I liked that this differed from the standard fatty pork, seaweed, egg ramen presentation.

"Pure" ramen - a tomato pork bone broth with lemon, bacon, arugula and buckwheat ramen

The pork curry was very tasty but, approach at your own risk, apparently it was loaded up with MSG.

Tonkatsu curry with rice