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

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.

I don’t normally shill for ramenyas that haven’t opened yet, especially one that I haven’t tried first hand, but in this case, I’ll make an exception.

Shigemi Kawahara, “Ramen King”, will be opening the first American outpost of his famous Ippudo in New York City at the end of the month. Kawahara-san gained fame by taking 1st place in televised ramen battles 3 years in a row, and then won the title of “Ramen King” in a TV competition in 2005. Ippudo was first opened in Hakata in 1985, and has grown to 34 locations throughout Japan.

Big in Japan has a recent review of Ippudo’s hakata ramen in japan while the Feisty Foodie and Eater report on last Tuesday’s sneak preview.

Hakata Ippudo NY
65 Fourth Avenue
New York, NY
212-388-0088

via gridskipper and rameniac

Korea seems to be having a lot of problems with ramen recently. On one hand, Korea Beat is reporting that some Korean schools are banning ramen in the fight against childhood obesity and malnutrition. But then again, the Chosun Ilbo Korean newspaper reported that people are panic-buying ramen in bulk because of rising prices. Just about every food product is suffering from higher prices, and ramen is no exception. Prices for flour and other ingredient have skyrocketed recently.

But still…is it really necessary to stockpile and/or ban instant ramen? What do you think?

More Hello Kitty ramen madness. But I gotta say, I’ve never seen “ogre ramen-making kitty” before!

As in NYC, ramen in Vancouver seems to be experiencing somewhat of a renaissance. Either that, or there’s not a lot of news happening in Canada lately.

Seattlites, don’t feel left out. Here’s a radio interview with the owner of Boom Noodle (yes, that’s Noodle singular).

Kids might enjoy this simple little ramen game. If you’re over the age of 6, though, this might interest you for all of 3 minutes or so. I suffered through 10 minutes of this to report to you that it’s just. more. of. the. same.

Another day, another “ramen battle” in Japan–waitasec…did that article say horse meat ramen!?!

It’s the 50th anniversary of Nissin’s Chicken Ramen! They’ll be releasing special flavors in 7 countries including the U.S.! Has anyone seen the U.S. onion flavor yet?

It seems like no good news comes out of China these days. A Chinese brand of gyoza linked to a series of illnesses in Japan has been found to contain high levels of insecticide, and has sparked panic across the country. There are speculations that the dumplings were deliberated tainted, since no traces of the insecticide were found in the Tianyang Food factory that produced the gyoza. The incident seems isolated to Japan so far, but I would still pass on this brand of gyoza, at least until more details about the problem surfaces.

via Mainichi Daily News and the UK Guardian.