the ramen blog & other goodies!

How would you like a free “instant emergency ramen kit”? The catch? You have to live in Japan.

The Japan Convenience Foods Industry Association is offering these cool kits to 5 lucky winners. The emergency kit consists of instant noodles, water, a portable cooker, utensils, and even a wet towel! What a great idea!

It makes perfect sense: “Considering its convenience and long shelf life, instant ramen can be a perfect stock food for disaster prevention,” according to the association. Sure beats the heck out of some canned foods. And even if you don’t live in Japan, why not roll your own. All you need are a few simple items:
– Five servings of instant ramen noodles
– Three 500-milliliter bottles of mineral water
– A stainless cup
– Solid fuel
– A barbeque lighter
– A pair of chopsticks
– A wet towel

As I was typing this though, I accidently typed “emergency instant ramen kit” instant of “instant emergency ramen kit,” which made me see the idea in a whole new light…this would be a nice “emergency kit” to carry around with you at all times, in case that ramen craving hits you when you least expect it!

via tokyomango

Couldn’t find a darn thing about this contest, but what a cool idea! (And did anyone notice who took the pic? Any Star Trek TNG fans out there?)

Recently, it seems like a new ramen house opens in New York City every freaking day! Time Out NY calls it a Ramen War. “Ramen war”?! I’d settle for a ramen…um…”disagreement”. I’m not bitter, just jealous…

Ramen, for breakfast? Why the hell not!

In other ramen news:

Grilled ramen, and other crazy ramen recipes! Looks good…getting hungry…

Ramen erasers! Enough said!

I tend to eat my nama ramen plain, to get a true taste of the noodles and soup (that, and I’m lazy). Hawaiian food blogger Pomai takes nama ramen to a whole new level. Follow along, as he turns nama ramen into real ramen, complete with homemade chashu!

There’s a new craze in Japan: all you can carry/fit-in-one-bag foods for one low price. Check out this video of people trying to get their money’s worth at a store featuring all-you-can-stack instant ramen!

An alert reader…uh…alerted me to the uncredited use of one of my pictures on the beachwood reporter web site.

Well, I certainly can’t fault their good taste! Actually, I don’t really mind, and I’m only bringing this up because the Beachwood Reporter looks like a genuine “real” news organization, not just a silly little blog site like…oh…say this ramen blog. In fact, I’d like to believe that it’s because my picture was so professional that they mistook it for an “official” source.

Anyway, here’s my original article with the original picture. And here’s the embarrassingly low-tech shot-it-on-my-dining-table unretouched version, for anyone who’s actually interested:

But, let’s not forget: the fact that a news organization is running what appears to be a regular ramen column…that’s a good thing folks!

China’s Xin Hua news reported that the China Branch of the International Ramen Manufactures Association (yes, there’s actually a mysterious and powerful “IRMA”, pulling the puppet strings behind every ramen-related incident worldwide…cough…or so I’ve heard…) has announced price hikes of up to 40% on some of China’s domestic brands of ramen. Of course, everyone knows the price of just about everything has gone up lately, but part of the ramen price hike is being attributed to palm oil.

I’m sure eventually, those price hikes will hit in the U.S. as well. Ramen fans and starving college students everywhere should stock up now!

There might not be any ramen reviews for a short while…my lucky charm of a wife managed to win 20 burritos at Chiptole Mexican Grill. Anyone who’s ever been to Chiptole knows that that is a LOT of burritos (they weigh around 2 lbs each)! Even after our grabby friends and relatives got their share (just kidding!), we still have enough burritos in our fridge to last us for a few days. So excuse me as I gorge on nothing but delicious burritos for a while…hmm…I wonder if a ramen burrito would be any good…