the ramen blog & other goodies!

By popular request (yeah, here at ramen hq, we consider one request to be popular), we decided to delve into the world of real cooking and experimented with making hanjuku eggs. After some research, trial and error, and mixing and matching of different recipes, we believe we’re off to a good start. Read the rest of this entry →

So we all know what a big bowl of ramen looks like. What about a microscopic bowl? An engineering professor and his students at the University of Tokyo have created the world’s smallest bowl of ramen, complete with (unedible) “noodles” that are only 1/12,5000th of an inch long and 1/1.25 millionth of an inch thick. Compare that with a human hair, which is on average, only 4/1000th of an inch thick.

The ramen bowl was created “for fun” using carbon nanotubes, which are microscopic tube shaped pieces of carbon. No word on what kind of soup base was used, and unfortunately, it doesn’t come with any toppings or chashu. As soon as we come across a nice microscopic plate of gyoza to go along with the ramen, you’ll be the first to know!

Thanks to tamade38 for the heads up!

There are numerous kinds of instant ramen, from the ubiquitous brick ramen, to cup and bowl ramen. A less common type of instant ramen is “stick ramen.” Unlike the other kinds of instant ramen, stick ramen noodles are packaged straight, like a package of spaghetti. As with other kinds of instant ramen, stick ramen comes with packs of soup base and seasoning.

This stick ramen has a shoyu tonkotsu base and the seasoning packet comes with a handful of sesame seeds and dried green onions. The soup has a heavy sesame smell, and is lightly flavored. There barely a shoyu flavor and not much tonkotsu. The flavors are entirely overwhelmed by sesame.

The instructions call for cooking the noodles for 2-1/2 mins, which is much too long. The soggy noodles are too slippery and not absorbent enough. Instead of working together, there’s too much of a contrast between the taste of the noodles and the soup.

Even though this tonkotsu-shoyu stick ramen ends up tasting like Chinese sesame oil noodles, the flavor does grow on you. If you’re looking for something a bit different, Marutai’s stick ramen is worth a try. It gets a 6.

With packaging reminiscent of something out of a science fiction setting, this is one of the neatest forms of ramen packaging I’ve come across. Goramen’s Keizo was nice enough to share his spoils from the Yokohama Ramen Museum, and I expected quite a treat.

I spent some time opening the ramen cube and taking pictures. Hidden within two almost-secret compartments were two bags of noodles, myriad packs of toppings, and the biggest packet of soup base I’ve ever seen. Read the rest of this entry →

Have any of you ever woken up in the morning and thought: hmm…it’s going to be 99 degrees today…what a great day for a nice steaming hot bowl of ramen! Since Mitsuwa Supermarket decided to hold their Gourmet Food Fair on the hottest weekend of the month, I found myself in the awkward position of doing just that and convincing my wife that I wasn’t already suffering from heat stroke! The wife and I went early to beat the heat, only to find an already packed parking lot and an already packed food court. We eagerly ordered the Kujiraken Shinasoba ramen (there’s only one choice) and circled the busy food court a few times before we were able to find some seats. Read the rest of this entry →

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

Update 05/14/08 9:10PM Gulp, I just found out that the shark fin ramen is $18! I guess they’re using real shark fin. The shina soba’s a more reasonable $7. If anyone’s rich enough to try the shark fin, please let us know how it is!