Ramen is one of our favourite dishes and I was delighted to spend our last night before the baby arrived going out somewhere new and special. The stand out feature of Gogyo is their signature burnt/charred ramen soup flavour. If you are fortunate enough to be seated at the bar which overlooks the kitchen, you can watch the chef's precisely scorch the sauce and meticulously combine it to create one of the best Ramen's in Sydney* (see footnote).

Gogyo is a new ramen/japanese restaurant in Surry Hills that is associated with the Ippudo-franchise (owned by the same people). The main difference is that Gogyo is a unique franchise with only 3 current locations (Japan, Hong Kong, and now Sydney).

Walking in you immediately feel that this place is special, and that theory soon becomes fact when you are sampling the incredibly high quality of their dishes.

Menu (As of 07.02.2018);

Wagyu Sukiyaki Spring Roll ($5.00 each)

Fried spring roll, filled with wagyu sukiyaki - served with peri peri mayo.

I picked this dish based off an instagram post by @kananeophilia that pleaded with people to try this and shared that she loved it more than their ramen. Since I was already assuming their ramen was going to be something special, I ordered this as my entree and WOW! They've managed to perfectly capture sukiyaki in a spring roll. The flavour is knock out. 

You'll have to excuse the secondary post-bite photo, I was pretty taken aback with how good it was. My wife, who only wanted 'just a bit' ended up claiming an entire half of it. We both agreed that left to our own devices we could have ordered 4 of them. 

Gogyo Original Gyoza ($14.00)

I doubt there will ever be a time we visit a Japanese restaurant and don't order Gyoza. We love Gyoza (and dumplings in general) and Gogyo's version is quite good. In my unofficial gyoza scoring system - these would come up as a 8.0 / 10. They were what I would call a typical Japanese style of Gyoza. The detractors were two things, the price - which is expensive for any serving of dumpling and the lack of the 'I must order another serving of these they are THAT GOOD'.   

Gogyo Tonkotsu ($17.00)

Silky pork broth, half umami egg, bamboo shoots, pork belly chashu

My wife ordered the Tonkotsu and was really impressed by it. The risk with Tonkotsu is that some places make it really fatty. Gogyo's version was really delicate, and brought back instant memories of feasting on ramen in Japan. We asked for some chilli oil to add in, which was easily obtained.

Kogashi Shoyu ($18.00)

Charred shoyu base, original chicken broth, half umami egg, pork belly chashu

This was the ramen I picked. I knew that I had to pick one of the signature charred ramens - and I decided on Shoyu because I figured it would be more salty. Can I start off by saying the flavour that comes from the charring process is amazing. It gives a subtle smokey richness to the dish, that is complimented perfectly with the rest of the ingredients. I lapped up the soup with glee - and vowed that we would come back to Gogyo just to experience this again. 

PRO:

• Charred ramen is a stand out. It's really reminiscent of Japan-quality ramen.
• Menu has a great array of delicious sounding items. I really love it when I struggle to order something because there are a lot of great sounding options (it means I have to come back!).
• Once seated, very attentive and friendly waitstaff.
• Will be coming back here, and bringing our ramen-loving friends who have been to Japan.

CON:

• Really poor greeting / wait for a table on arrival. When we arrived there was an utter and complete lack of staff greeting or system for asking for a table. We stood at the little desk for about 6 solid minutes, trying to get someone's attention before I had to resort to stop one of the waitstaff to ask how we could get a table / queue.
• Could not sample everything we wanted to in one sitting.
• Didn't get a chance to try their epic looking Karaage Chicken (@jphunky)

OVERALL:

A fantastic meal, great atmosphere, and a menu that we need to come back to explore. We'll be back and we'll be bringing along some friends that love ramen.

Details:

Address: 52-54 Albion St, Surry Hills NSW 2010

Opening Hours:

• Mon-Thur, 12:00-15:00 / 17:30-22:00.
• Fri, 12:00-15:00 / 17:30-22:30.
• Sat 11:30-15:00 / 17:30-22:30.
• Sun 11:30-15:00 / 17:00-20:30 

Phone: (02) 9212 0003

Map:

*Footnote - thoughts about "The best ramen in Sydney".

Driving home from Gogyo I was having a heated discussion with my wife about how there is no way to fairly or definitely name any restaurant's ramen "the best in Sydney". Ramen is so wonderfully varied, so different from place to place. In my mind I have trouble even ranking the ones in my top 5, and in their own way are amazing

Therefore, from this point onwards I pledge that I'll never tout a ramen restaurant as 'the best' - but rather call it 'one of the best' if I feel it sits as a contender for that title. 

(Gogyo's ramen ranks in that grouping!).