the ramen blog & other goodies!

Nissin Foods, makers of the ubiquitous Cup
Noodles, is issuing a voluntary recall of some shrimp-flavored noodles. Nissin Foods recently discovered that some of the seafood-flavored powder (mmm…powered seafood…) contains cod and lobster, which some people are apparently allergic to.

So if you have any seafood allergies, you may want to read all the facts before you eat that next bowl or cup of Nissin noodles with shrimp (also “Great Value,” “Thrifty Maid,” and “Jehling” instant noodles).

Otherwise, move along! There’s nothing to see here!

via that’s fit

I have a bad habit of not really looking at or reading the packages of ramen that I eat until after I’ve eaten them. In this case, I was a bit surprised to open the package and see two different colored soup packets…was this some special “red/white song battle” (K?haku Uta Gassen) ramen? No, there’re actually two types of soup in this package! Cool! The white one is tonkotsu. The red one is tonkotsu shoyu.

Read the rest of this entry →

Day 3 of Ogawaya ramen week continues with the kurume ichiban noko tonkotsu ramen! (It just occurred to me to read the rest of the ramen packages I bought last weekend, and I realized that all the ramen were made by Ogawaya. Duh!) Kurume ramen is from the Kurume region of Fukuoka, where tonkotsu ramen originated. Unlike the first two packaged ramen I had this week, this one is a “pure” tonkotsu ramen. The noodles were again practically identical to the other two Ogawaya ramen, which is to say, good! The noodles had a great chewy texture and absorbs the fatty pork bone flavors nicely. The light-tan soup had a subtle but satisfyingly fatty taste that doesn’t scream out “pork.” There’s just a bite of pork taste that lingers in the back of your throat with every slurp. A slight aftertaste of garlic and MSG leaves a nice tingle on your tongue once the ramen is gone. This is a good solid ramen that deserves an 8 out of 10.

Day 2 of hakata ramen week continues with Ogawaya’s nagahamakko tonkotsu miso ramen. Ok, I’m actually cheating. I’m writing the reviews for day 1 and 2 on day 3, and I’m getting tired so I’ll probably write day 3’s review on day 4.

I think this is supposed to be based on an actual ramen-ya’s ramen. Surprisingly, this tasted very much like yesterday’s hakata ramen. At the time, I didn’t bother reading the label closely enough: same factory. Hmm…maybe not so surprising after all.

This ramen also had a bright orange soup, but was more fragrant; I could actually smell the miso. Like the pirikara ramen, these noodles were also prone to clumping and had almost the exact same great texture and taste, even though the instructions had different cooking times (2 mins vs 90 seconds). The soup isn’t spicy, which ironically gave it more flavor. The miso stood out, but I still couldn’t taste much of a pork flavor.

This ramen tastes a bit better than yesterday’s ramen, but the soup could still use some improvement. This gets a 7.

Our local Marukai supermarket is having a sale on a variety of hakata ramen so naturally, we had to buy them all! There were 5 different types. Guess what I’m having for dinner this week!

First up: the Ogawaya pirikara hakata tonkotsu miso ramen…whew! The bright orange soup had almost no smell, which was odd. The noodles were hard hakata style noodles, which were nice and al dente, and flavorful. These noodles tended to stick together while cooking, so you need to make sure you shake the noodles well or end up with a clumpy hard mess. The soup was mildly spicy, and that was about it. I couldn’t really taste the miso or the pork flavor. The spicy taste really reminded me of Korean spicy ramen, which isn’t a bad thing, but I didn’t think it went well with the miso tonkotsu flavor. This ramen gets a 6 out of 10…good noodles, so-so soup.

Do you love ramen? I mean really looooove ramen? Now you can…um…be ramen! A theme park in Hakone, Japan has teamed up with a famous ramen-ya to open a “ramen bath,” complete with tonkotsu-colored, pepper-flavored “soup” that you can soak your weary bones in. The water is said to “help produce beautiful skin and aid moisture retention.” No word yet on when the shio, miso, and shoyu baths will be open. Hmm…I wonder if there’s any MSG in that water? I’m sure *that* would help preserve your skin!
via Mainichi Daily News

11:18am update: Just found more pics here.
11:29am: …and a video as well! via the official ramen page
8:46pm: yet one more video. enjoy!