We continue our exploration of Sun’s ramen offerings with their Miso flavor. If Shoyu is the most popular/well known of the base ramen flavors in the US, Tonkotsu and Miso battle it out for the number two spot. For instance, my wife is not a big fan of Tonkotsu, but usually prefers Miso. Conversely, my friend Hsien loves Tonkotsu over all others. It’s all based on palate preference. While the Miso flavor is still a good choice, it is certainly not my favorite of the bunch. However, it does allow for a more rounded choice when picking out a favored flavor from Sun.
Sun continues dominating the packaged ramen market with its Tonkotsu offering. I, personally, have always preferred Shoyu over Tonkotsu in restaurants and at stands. However, in the case of Sun’s offering, I actually prefer the Tonkotsu. So, I guess I lied in my last review – Shoyu is no longer the single best pre-packaged ramen. Sun actually managed to top themselves.
This is the single best pre-packaged ramen I have ever had. It’s stunning how close it gets to restaurant/stand quality in a little refrigerated box. I found this in my Japanese grocer’s freezer and tried it out simply because I prefer the uncooked noodle variety of pre-packaged ramen. I am so glad I did.
This is my go-to recipe for ramen broth. It’s a fairly simplistic recipe as far as ramen goes – I’d place it somewhere between a real, multi-day broth cook, and a decent packaged broth. For what it is, my family and I find it to be quite delicious, and it doesn’t require hours upon hours of work, which is sometimes a necessary consideration when you have a toddler and a baby running and crawling around and you have a craving for ramen. I’ve been tweaking this recipe for years, and this is my current version. It’s very adaptable, the base components being the Hon Dashi and chicken broth. Other than those two things, you can do just about whatever you want to it!
While going through the refrigerated noodle section at Hatoya Japanese Grocer here in Charlotte, I found this bag of Maruchan noodles I had never seen. While it does use ramen noodles, it is not a soup – there is no broth mixing, and no reason to heat a certain amount of water in order to make the base mix. These are, basically, sesame cold noodles, and they’re pretty delicious.
I picked this package of Shimadaya Shoyu ramen up in the freezer section of my Japanese grocer. I liked the look of the packaging and, as all packaged ramen aficionados know, the freezer section ramen is usually the best ramen. This particular brand, however, left me severely wanting.