the ramen blog & other goodies!

Hot on the trails of their last ramen festival, Japanese supermarket chain Mitsuwa Marketplace is holding a Umaimono Gourmet Food Fair (roughly translated as “yummy stuff” food fair), complete with two very different types of ramen along with other “gourmet foods.”
For the ramen lovers, you get your choice of “scary” (scary?!) shark fin ramen from Tokyo’s Chibakiya, present at the ramen festival, and shina soba from Kanagawa’s Kujiraken Honten (”Love for the noodles, and soul for the soup.”)
For everyone else, there’s beef tongue from Sendai, takoyaki from Osaka, and various sweet potato snacks.

Chibakiya: available 5/15 (Thu) - 5/18 (Sun) at the Torrance, CA Mitsuwa, and 5/22 (Thu) - 5/25 (Sun) at the New Jersey Mitsuwa

Kujiraken: available 5/15 (Thu) - 5/18 (Sun) at the Costa Mesa, CA Mitsuwa, and 5/22 (Thu) - 5/25 (Sun) at the San Jose, CA Mitsuwa

Via goramen.com

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Tags: ramen news

Those of you that visit our humble site regularly know that I don’t particularly care about the nutritional value of the food I slurp down my gullet. But lately, after starting to post the nutritional information of the instant ramen we review, I’ve started paying just a bit more attention to what’s on the label. While nobody will likely argue that instant ramen, especially instant brick ramen, is especially nutritious, I’m not sure how many people have noticed that the “Nutrition Facts” on these things is…well…I don’t want to make any unfound accusations, but has anyone in the history of instant ramen ever eaten only one-third of a pack of ramen and considered that “one serving”?

I’m not sure if all brick ramen use the same way of showing nutritional info, but a cursory glance at all the ramen in ramen HQ’s cupboards showed the same thing: that the instant ramen industry considers one pack of instant ramen to be three servings.

So what do you think? Is this way of presenting nutritional info purposefully misleading? Or business as usual?

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Tags: ramen tidbits

Quick, describe the taste of chicken to someone who’s never had chicken before…having trouble?

Just as chicken seems to be one of the lowest common denominators in food flavors, so is the “instant ramen-ness” of Sapporo Ichiban’s original flavor. The “original” flavor doesn’t belong to the typical ramen flavor groups: it’s not shoyu, not tonkotsu, not shio, not miso. There is a slight miso-ness to the soup base flavor, but it’s barely discernable underneath the barrage of onion-ness, white pepper-ness, MSG-ness, and the plain original-ness of Sapporo Ichiban’s popular instant ramen. The curly instant brick noodles with a good chewy texture and the non-descript tangy aftertaste rounds out Sapporo Ichiban’s Original flavor experience. Ramen purists will turn up their noses at this instant ramen, but to a whole generation of college students and anyone who’s ever been on a tight food budget, this is a decent, affordable, and welcome alternative to Top Ramen.

Brick ramen rating: 6/10. Click through for the nutritional info. Read the rest of this entry →

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Tags: brick ramen

Ramenramenramen has learned that Nissin is introducing a limited edition Cup Noodles to select markets across the U.S. The new flavor, called simply “MSG flavor,” was created in response to the overwhelming popularity of MSG flavoring. “You have no idea how many letters we receive from ramen fans asking for ‘more MSG’,” said a spokesperson for Nissin. “Some of the more (ahem) extreme fans even questioned why we had so many flavors. ‘Don’t even bother diluting the MSG with beef, chicken, shrimp, or any of those other weird flavors. Just give us the good stuff!’ Being the kind of company that listens to our customers, we came up with Cup Noodles MSG flavor!”

Food technicians at Nissin have spent the last several weeks tweaking and perfecting the final product. Recent focus groups have given an unanimous thumbs-up to the new flavor. “I drank 5 gallons of water after I ate just one Cup Noodles MSG flavor!” exclaimed one food tester. Another tester burst with excitement, “I can’t feel my tongue, man! It’s like the soup…ate…my tongue! This is the best Cup Noodles flavor EVER!”

The new flavor will be available in stores on April 1st. If demand is as high as expected, Nissin is already prepared to fast-track a sequel, “DoubleShot MSG Flavor,” for release later this year.

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Tags: nissin, ramen news

More than one person has taken me to task for not trying the tokusen toroniku (choice fatty pork) ramen at Santouka. Interestingly, not one of my friends think Santouka is very good. But then again, none of them have tried the toroniku either. So finally, I convinced two other ramen-loving (well, ramen-enjoying anyway) friends to go to Santouka and splurge on a toroniku free-for-all. Read the rest of this entry →

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Tags: miso, OC ramen, ramen shops, shio, shoyu

Rumor had it that Daikokuya was opening in “the OC” in the beginning of March. I happily went there two weeks ago only to find a Daikokuya sign and an empty store. Darn. Finally, after asking around, I found out that the official grand opening was set for “some time in April” (this was from two different Daikokuya employees, but neither could give me a firm date) and that the owner was currently in Japan buying decorations. The good news though? The location is already up and running and open for business!

The ramen shop does look a bit unfinished, with no real signage or posters; there’s only a little hand-written blackboard menu on the counter. The only items on the menu (so far?) are the Daikokuya ramen, a shredded pork bowl (a rice bowl with shredded pork), and the gyoza. Read the rest of this entry →

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Tags: OC ramen, ramen shops, tonkotsu