To continue my quest to find and rank the best ramen in Cebu, my next stop is yet another recommendation from from friend from CallTek Cenir (para sosyal), CJ. After my rather underwhelming review of Sachi Ramen, he recommended a place I haven’t heard of from anybody else, Bari-Uma Ramen.
In all honesty, I wasn’t really planning to go out of my way to try this out since Ikkousha Ramen at JY Square mall is what I had on mind given it had more recommendations from friends.
But of course, like anything else in this life, we make plans as if we are in the driver seat no matter how constant reminder from life itself that we aren’t.
Long story short, I had to have a meeting at Ayala Terraces and and Bari-Uma seemed like the perfect excuse to come in an hour early. 🙂
At around 2:00 pm I came, and I had the place to myself. Checked on their menu and searched for that specific ramen that CJ posted a pic on my wall just so I’ll be sure to do a better comparison. This made me end up with the Zeitaku-Uma ramen below:
Little did I know this was their most expensive ramen and it’s for good reason, it tastes amazing and the serving was way beyond what I could eat (and I tell you I was hungry although I’m only about 60kg for your reference).
Naturally, I also ordered additional fresh chilies (as seen on the first pic above) as I prefer all my food to at least have a kick.
The pork base soup was once again heaven – you get the feel from the first sip that this is of premium quality. I also want to mention that the soup was exactly how I wanted it, hot (I remember one visit at Yushoken at had soup that was near warm already).
The pork strips was perfectly soft but still with a bite into it and and was great with the soup. The noodles was also as expected, not too tender.
Overall, the balance of content the ramen had was there unlike the 90% noodels I had with Sachi’s seafood ramen.
My recommendation is you start off with their signature dish which is the Ajitama-Uma ramen. All their ramen except one (the light soup ramen) are actually just the same, they just differ in the toppings.
Although not conclusive just yet, I would say Bari-uma’s take on the ramen is definitely top notch. In fact, this is now on my #2 best ramen places in Cebu! Here’s my list so far:
Still to be tested is Ikkousha, Tongara ramen and Barikata so watch out for upcoming reviews on those!
Other ramen places I’ve tried include 99 Ramen (our best value everyday ramen place) and Joed’s Lutong Hapon at APM mall (not recommended).
This restaurant is hard to miss at it is at the ground floor of Ayala Terraces. It’s just along J. Co Donuts. You can contact them through their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Ramen-Restaurant/Bari-Uma-Ramen-Cebu-419827555247182/
[ReviewDisclaimer]
