the ramen blog & other goodies!

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!

Wow! The first thing you’ll notice when you open the lid is how many packets of goodies there are. It was almost like a magic trick of never-ending flavor packets. There are FIVE packets of ingredients: there’s the obligatory soup powder (aka MSG), the liquid soup base, a packet of fresh ginger, one for onions, and finally, a packet of toppings. Toppings include very ordinary sesame seeds, somewhat special judas ear (fungus!), and a slice of pork.

The skinny tonkotsu noodles were just about perfect for instant ramen: chewy and flavorful. It soaked up the soup nicely and retained a rich pork flavor. The skimpy (sesame seeds, fungus, and ginger?! that’s it?!) toppings worked well together…well…except that I absolutely detest ginger, so I gave that to my wife (hi hon!). The pork was an unfortunate ultra-thin slice of…well, it was bacon-like, but then again, who eats boiled bacon? Luckily that the only thing that detracted from this ramen. Onwards to the soup! Read the rest of this entry →

Veteran readers of this blog already know that “space ramen” has already been around for a few years. Finally, ramen has been officially certified by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency for use in the International Space Station.

Astronauts of all nationalities will get to enjoy a bevy of Japanese food choices, including Japanese curry, onigiri (rice balls), green tea, and of course, ramen!

via space.com

One neat thing about Shimadaya’s ramen is that there are three flavor packets! There’s a packet of soup base, a packet of seasoning oil, and a pack of spices. Those of you who enjoy reading ingredients will find that there’s both chicken extract and chicken extract powder, two kinds of fat (the seasoning oil is basically a mixture of chicken fat and pork fat), and two helpings of MSG (in the soup base as well as in the “spices”). Yum! Read the rest of this entry →

I guess it comes as no surprise…the world famous kitty who has her own line of ramen is also an acclaimed ramen chef.

Well ok, maybe not, but in this new Nintendo DS game, you (playing the role of the multi-talented Hello Kitty) can “prepare a bowl of ramen with all the fixings,” among other activities to earn extra spending cash.

You might be asking, “why the heck does a kitty who owns her own freaking airplane need to bother earning money by slaving away in a hot ramen kitchen?”

Well, apparently her boyfriend “Dear Daniel” went on a trip (a photography training assignment no less!!!) and forget his camera, so now the “dutiful and action-oriented” kitty has to catch up to him and make money on the way to pay for her trip.

Ah, but you might say, “but I thought Hello Kitty was over Daniel. Isn’t she with Tippy now?”

And my reply would be, “whimper…can I stop writing about this now?”

Ramen has never been so fun!