Karakarauo: Sugakiya’s Super-Spicy Addictive Instant Ramen
At this time of the year, a bowl of instant ramen is annually sold only for a limited time in Japan. Since I am a big fan of the cup ramen, I purchased that this year too at a drugstore near my house.
Sugakiya Karakarauo (寿がきや 辛辛魚)
What I bought this time is this “Karakarauo (辛辛魚)”, which is a popular, spicy bowl of Japanese instant ramen. Since Karakarauo went on the market for the first time in 2009, this year the cup ramen marks its 10th anniversary.
The Karakarauo instant ramen was created by “Sugakiya (寿がきや)”, a Japanese food maker well-known for instant ramen products, in collaboration with “Mendokoro Inoshou (麺処 井の庄)”.
Mendokoro Inoshou (麺処 井の庄)
Image: tabelog.com
Mendokoro Inoshou is a popular ramen shop located in Nerima Ward, Tokyo. Its signature dish, Karakarauo Ramen (Tsukemen) is a quite spicy noodle soup dish with fish powder and finely ground red chili pepper on top.
- Address: Lions Plaza, 3-25-21 Shakujii-Machi, Nerima-Ku, Tokyo (MAP)
- Open: (Monday to Friday) 11:00 to 15:30, 17:00 to 23:30 (Saturday and Sunday) 11:00 to 23:30
Features
As with Inoshou’s Karakarauo Ramen, this Sugakiya’s Karakarauo Ramen is also super-spicy, but at the same time, it is very tasty with an addictive flavor from the soup broth containing the umami ingredients of fish and pork.
You might be choked with the extremely spicy kick right after you slurp the noodles, but if you like spicy stuff, you will most likely be able to eat it up thanks to the delicious umami-rich broth.
Ingredients
For people who want to know the specific ingredients in the Sugakiya Karakarauo Ramen, here is the list.
According to that, the soup base mainly consists of soy sauce, pork extract, red chili pepper, bonito powder, pork powder, chicken extract, garlic paste, and flavoring oil.
This instant ramen uses somewhat thick wheat noodles but has few toppings other than chopped green onions.
Cooking
Lastly, for those who are interested in the Sugakiya Karakarauo Ramen and want to try it someday, here are the cooking instructions for the Japanese instant ramen.
Instructions
| 1 |  |
First, peel back the paper lid about halfway and take all the packets out from the container |
|---|---|---|
| 2 |  |
Open the green packet and add the soup base powder to the bowl |
| 3 |  |
Pour boiling water until it reaches the line indicated inside the bowl, close the lid, and let the liquid soup base red packet warm on top of the bowl |
| 4 |  |
4 minutes later, remove the paper lid, add in the liquid soup base, and give it all a good stir with chopsticks. As a finishing touch, put the finely ground red chili pepper of the blue packet on top of the ramen and enjoy! |
