PETALING JAYA, Oct 23 — As far as restaurant names go, Human Beings Everybody Noodles takes the cake.
It’s the translated name of Jinrui Mina Menrui, one of Osaka’s most popular ramen restaurants and a 2025 pick for the city’s top 100 ramen shops on Tabelog.
Tabelog is widely regarded as Japan’s most reliable restaurant review platform, famous for a strict, weighted scoring system under which 97 per cent of listed eateries score below 3.5 stars.
Jinrui Mina Menrui holds 3.75, if you’re wondering.
Takahiro Matsumura founded the restaurant in 2012, and it built a large following on housemade wheat noodles and a clean shoyu broth of clams and chicken bones.
That success gave him the foundation to launch a slew of other concepts, including the similarly eccentric The Most Deserted Ramen-Bar in the World and The Old Man’s Best Swing.
Last year, parent group Unchi Co announced a global expansion on its website.
This August, Jinrui Ramen arrived in Malaysia, opening its first location in Damansara Perdana.
To make sure its offerings are available to just about “everybody”, the outlet serves no pork, no lard and no alcohol.
Its website states that all ingredients come from halal-certified suppliers, though the restaurant itself is still pending halal certification.
I guess pescatarians, vegetarians, and their ascetic branch, vegans, don’t count as “everybody”.
But in keeping with the theme, the space is littered with art depicting everyone from Einstein to P. Ramlee eating ramen.
Ironically, the images strongly resemble AI-generated art. The medium is the message, folks.
Sitting at the counter, I watched a “live” concert by a Japanese pop-rock band on TV. As time went by, I realised everybody in the restaurant was hostage to a never-ending loop of that same band’s concert videos.
But it wasn’t too bad, all things considered. Though I didn’t understand anything, it’s much, much better than being forced to listen to Ed Sheeran.
My always-listening phone later identified them as Mr Children, Matsumura’s favourite band, and a few blogs suggest most Jinrui locations blast them all day long.
The menu is focused: four variations of the broth (Premium, Micro, Macro and Red) and the same four for the dry mazesoba.
The Red is a spicy variant launched just for our Malaysian taste buds, while Micro and Macro are named after compilation albums by, you guessed it, Mr Children.
The calling card is the Premium (RM29): chewy, medium-thick wheat noodles in a clam and chicken shoyu broth layered with scallop oil.
Toppings are kept simple, with sous vide chicken chashu, sliced negi and fresh aka kaiware, red radish sprouts with a distinctly peppery bite.
A soy-marinated egg (RM3) costs extra. There’s a deep sweetness to the clear beige broth, and the clam comes through with real clarity.
It isn’t a salty, fatty, tonkotsu-esque affair, so if that’s what you look for in ramen, stop reading now.
The slick, chewy noodles are the real highlight. Whatever the ratio of soft to chewy is, they’ve found it.
For more thorough enjoyment of the noodles, I opted to try them dry. Thankfully, the mazesoba also comes in a half-portion, which I ordered in the Micro (RM15).
Despite the name, it’s a veritable flavour bomb, powered by the savoury aroma of garlic.
It’s fairly salty, a sensation compounded by the irresistible texture of the noodles, but the saltiness is a little one-dimensional, and I’d struggle to finish a full bowl on my own.
The diminutive cubes of sous vide chicken don’t help. Diced chicken doesn’t cling to tossed noodles, particularly ones with this little oil, and you end up with a pile of rubbery bits at the bottom of the bowl.
The thick slices used for the ramen would have served it better.
It is, however, a real joy to see more regional and specialised ramen arriving in Malaysia.
After the initial wave in the early 2000s, the market settled into a narrow idea of the dish that revolved almost exclusively around tonkotsu.
But over the last few years, the arrival and success of concepts like Enishi and Minamo suggest there is a market for ramen beyond tonkotsu.
Jinrui is the latest to join the field, offering a ramen unlike anything else in our market.
Jinrui Ramen Malaysia
Damansara Perdana, Petaling Jaya.
Open daily, 11am — 9pm.
Tel: 03-7613 9048
Facebook: Jinrui Ramen Malaysia
Instagram: @jinruiramen.my
* This is an independent review where the writer paid for the meal.
* Follow us on Instagram @eatdrinkmm for more food gems.
* Follow Ethan Lau on Instagram @eatenlau for more ramen stories.
