Ramen Taste Testing
This is where I get to talk about one
of my favorite foods: ramen. I would also like to share
my experience with trying various imported ramen packages.
Preface
My experience is that I was an American who lived 2 years in South Korea and four years in Japan. I was often too busy to really learn the language and culture, though I tried my best. But I got to enjoy a lot of Asian cuisine, and so this is my background. I'm not an expert by any means, but I will gauge authenticity of ramen by my experiences mainly in Japan, and partially in South Korea.
Packaged ramen will never reach the level of
excellence practiced in the restaurants I visited in
Japan. One shop especially, Hokkaido ramen ("Mountain"
ramen?) was my favorite shop. I had barely learned enough
Japanese to ask them to substitute another egg for the pork, as
I didn't know how to tell them I like my pork blackened.
And as well, I don't recall seeing any skillets in use in this
ramen shop. But the four to five women who ran this
restaurant were the best. Their ramen (usually I got
"spicy miso" ramen) had an excellent flavor and contained
numerous vegetables. Packaged ramen won't even come close
to this, but the goal of this article is to evaluate ramen and
see which ones come close.
Shin Ramen
This has long been my standard for ramen. It is slightly expensive, but it includes both a soup base and a spicy soup base component, along with freeze dried vegetables. The noodles are high in quality. It also seems to have the highest count of freeze dried vegetables. If I was going to recreate spicy miso ramen from Japan, I would cook this in a pan, add some miso to the broth, and then throw in a bunch of vegetables and top with half of a boiled egg.
"Korean Army" Ramen
When I saw this, I just had to try it.
As the package says, this comes with beans of some sort. I was surprised and curious when I read this. When I got it home and cooked it, indeed there were some freeze dried red beans in it. The total amount of vegetables included isn't as many as in Shin Ramen, but it's got quite a bit.
I was actually impressed with this ramen and it quickly became my favorite. It had enough kimchi cabbage included so that I could taste it, but also with a beefy stock and beans. It was almost like someone took the recipe for red beans and rice from Mahatman and converted it into a ramen and threw in a tiny bit of kimchi. It isn't high enough in quality that I would be willing to give up my Shin ramen, but it's very delicious and a welcome departure from what is common fare in packaged ramen. I would love to take some of this on a camping trip.
Spicy Kin Ramen
I tried this one out as well. When I made this, I noticed it had a good amount of freeze dried vegetables in it: already in the cup with the noodles. The soup quality itself was mostly average for ramen. But unlike another brand or two I have tasted, which claim to be kimchi flavor but don't really deliver on that promise, this one definitely tasted like kimchi. So much so that I warmed up some rice and ate the broth with the rice.
The noodle quality of this offering seemed
about average, but the broth was slightly better than
average. And it was legitimately spicy. I can safely
recommend this ramen, although there are better ones.