Review | Ajisen Ramen

After a pretty hectic Saturday day and evening, E took me out to one of our favourite local spots for dinner to relax, and enjoy some tasty food.

Ajisen Ramen in Glen Waverley is the home of E’s favourite and most craved dish. And his yearning is for good reason – the famed dish, Ebi Mayonnaise, is unbelievable moreish and fresh, and we will be fans of it for years to come for sure.

Apart from the Ebi Mayonnaise, we also ordered a Bento each – I ordered the Tori Karaage (Chicken) Bento and E ordered the Tonkatsu (Pork) Bento. For drinks we both ordered another favourite – grape Calpico soda. This drink is a must try – it is devilishly sweet and grapey. Sooooo good!!

Grape Calpico - $3.80 (Thanks to E for styling this photo!)

Back to the Ebi! This dish is made up of perfectly crispy fried prawns, on a bed of salad, laced with sweet Japanese mayonnaise. The flavour of the prawns is so true, and the crispy layer surrounding them makes for the perfect combination of textures with the silky mayonnaise and refreshing salad. This dish is definitely a winner in both of our books.. I’m salivating as I write this up, and thinking of the next possible chance for me to sample some more goodness.. hmm.. maybe on the weekend?

Ebi Mayonnaise - The best $9.00 you'll ever spend!

The Bento boxes came out soon after – each with massively generous servings!! Each Bento was made up of a compartment of steamed rice, some salad, 2 gyoza, a teriyaki tasting chicken and spring onion skewer, and our meat – Tori Karaage for me and Tonkatsu for E. The chicken skewer was really delicious – the meat was very tender, and the flavour was great! This really surprised me since it was just a small part of the Bento, and not the main feature. The gyoza were also good, and although the gyoza at Shyun was just that extra bit tastier, it didn’t stop me from downing both of them :D. The salad was quite similar to the salad under the Ebi Mayonnaise – so you know how I feel about that! Delicious and refreshing!

The Tori Karaage pieces had a great kick to them – the batter coating them was so crispy and reminded me a little of KFC (in a good way), and in the cooking process had kept the chicken so tender, so it was so soft to eat.

Tori Karaage Bento - $13.80

E’s Tonkatsu pieces were also tasty and he gobbled them all up. I was so full by this stage that I didn’t really touch any of the rice. E thought maybe Ajisen could serve the rice in one of the smaller segments of the Bento box, but we were both impressed that the serve was so big.

Tonkatsu Bento - $12.80

After a mess of a day, it had been a perfect night at Ajisen. The staff are all exceptionally efficient and polite, and are very quick using their PDAs to take our orders. We will definitely be back to enjoy Ajisen and no doubt more Ebi Mayonnaise and all its glory.