Hi, guest contributor Hsien, here. Nate invited me to post about my first attempt at making ramen-style chashu (shoyu-braised pork belly). Nate doesn’t have ready access to pork belly, and I do, so I’m gonna be the guinea pig.
Jess and I had the opportunity to attend a local pop-up ramen night at Local Loaf in uptown Charlotte at the 7th Street Public Market tonight.
We went by Hatoya, our favored Japanese grocer, today to re-up on some supplies. Sadly, they were out of Sun Tonkotsu and Pocari Sweat, but they did have some new pre-made dashi bottles I’d like to try. They also finally got in refrigerated noodles on their own, so those’ll be fun to try as well!
Today we have a two-fer! Jess and I decided to try Myojo Chukazanmai’s Oriental and Soy Sauce flavored ramen. Considered amongst packaged ramen folk to be of a higher quality than your typical American grocery store ramen, these two offerings pack quite a bit of flavor in a freeze-dried packet.
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!
