Nissin Santouka Tonkotsu Shio Ramen Instant Noodle
Yesterday, on the way home from work, I stopped by a 7-eleven convenience store near my workplace.
I love instant ramen, so first and foremost, I headed to the shelves on which a large variety of instant cup noodles are lined up.
As I wrote in this article, there are a number of instant noodles only sold in the stores of 7 Eleven Japan,
which are created by major Japanese instant noodles manufacturers, like Nissin, in collaboration with popular ramen shops.
In the 7 Eleven I dropped by, I found one of my favorite instant ramen bowls of that kind, so I grabbed it.
Nissin Ramen Santouka Instant Noodle Soup
What I purchased at the time is the one shown above, Nissin Ramen Santouka Asahikawa Tonkotsu Shio Ramen, a long-selling bowl of instant ramen released in 2001 by Nissin.
Ramen Santouka
For the unfamiliar, “Ramen Santouka (ラーメン山頭火)” is a popular ramen restaurant chain whose head office is in the city of Asahikawa, Hokkaido.
And currently, the Japanese ramen shop is running 14 ramen restaurants in the United States.
Ramen Santouka is especially popular for its salt-based pork bone broth “Tonkotsu Shio Ramen (とんこつ塩ラーメン)” with a small piece of pickled Ume plum “Koume (小梅)” on top.
Ingredients
According to the ingredient list on the side of the bowl, as with the actual ramen in the restaurant, this Nissin Ramen Santouka instant noodle has toppings including a piece of Koume plum, a slice of Chashu roast pork, bits of Menma bamboo shoots, a thin round slice of Naruto fish cake, and cloud ear mushrooms.
Its soup base mainly consists of pork extract, pork and chicken oil, sesame seeds, flavor oil, fermented seasoning, spices, sesame paste, wheat flour, soy sauce, seafood extract, green onions, salt, Shiitake extract, pork seasoning, and sardine powder.
Cooking Instructions
Nowadays, thanks to the internet, this Nissin Santouka instant ramen can be bought even in countries outside of Japan. So for those who want to try it someday, here, I will share the cooking instructions.
| 1 |  |
First, peel back the paper lid about halfway and take all the packets out from the bowl. |
|---|---|---|
| 2 |  |
Put the contents (dehydrated garnishes) of the orange and blue packets (other than the Koume plum) into the cup. Then pour boiling water until it reaches the line indicated inside. |
| 3 |  |
Place the blue packet of liquid soup base on the lid and let the noodles sit and cook for 4 minutes. |
| 4 |  |
4 minutes later, loosen the noodles lightly and add in the contents of the blue and green packets. Then stir all the ingredients well with chopsticks and as a finishing touch, put the Koume plum on the noodle soup. |
Taste
As for the taste, the salt-based Tonkotsu broth is mild and creamy, packed with the delicious umami of pork, accompanied by the fragrant aroma of sesame.
Meanwhile, the yellow, somewhat curly, pretty thick noodles are slippery and have a nice chew. I think the overall ramen is of quite a high level and is worth a try at least once.
