Mitsuyado Sei-Men: Different, but not to my Liking

In an effort to keep up with my "try a new restaurant every month" goal, I'm always on the lookout for different and new places to try. Granted, I am on a diet, but I pretty much feel that if I don't cheat, I might give up altogether.

So, my sister (and cheating buddy) Tere recommended we try Mitsuyado Sei-Men along Jupiter. I was intrigued because it supposedly served really good tsukemen, which wasn't something I've tried before.

First, the good: I liked the ambiance, it's simple and different from the typical modern Japanese restos, with a "street food" feel to it and service was prompt and courteous.

Unfortunately, that's all I liked.



Again, it's not a ramen house, their specialty is tsukemen or dipping noodles. Basically, you dip noodles in a broth of your choice. I already read the reviews that their ramen was bad, so my sister and I opted to go for the specialties, the double cheese tsukemen and karash tsukemeni as well as their gyoza, which were all highly recommended. The double cheese, for me, tasted odd, and not Japanese at all. You can see in the picture that it was served with a topping of parmesan as well as two dips, a cheese sauce, not unlike the ones you eat with nachos, and a broth that was described as a tonkotsu broth with yuzu (citrus). The noodles, for their part were quite good and tasted fresh and of good quality, but I felt that the cheese sauce actually cheapened that flavor. The broth was a mix of sweet and sour which I really did not enjoy.

My sister's spicy Karashi was marginally better, but not by much, there was an overpowering flavor of (sesame?) oil, and it was a bit too spicy for me . Their gyoza was standard fare and nothing to rave about, I neither liked it nor hated it.

I'm not a fan and won't be coming back.

 

Cheat Score: Totally not worth it.

Where: 22 Jupiter St. Jupiter, Makati, Matro Manila.