Marutai Famous Stores Premium Ikkousha Tonkotsu Ramen Review

The Marutai Ikkousha Premium Hakata Tonkotsu Ramen by Marutai is part of a set of four types of instant ramen in their Kyushu Famous Stores Series made in conjunction with the restaurant partners.  I didn't manage to get all four varieties, but I did manage to get three and this is the third and final review in the series.  It turns out that Ikkousha even has a restaurant in Toronto, Canada, so this is pretty cool to review.

I previously did a big review of their regular Kyushu Marugoto Ramen Pack By Marutai here.  This premium Kyushu Famous Stores series definitely has my interest simply because their regular ramen is pretty good to excellent.  The individual packages of noodles here are single serving only and are more expensive per serving than the regular double servings.  The premium packages include more toppings for your noodles and liquid soup bases which usually produce a superior soup.

Ikkousha Toronto is known for their rich and creamy tonkotsu ramen. This package of Marutai Ikkousha Premium Hakata Tonkotsu Ramen features their delicious pork bone soup base that concentrates the natural flavor and sweetness of pork bones. It is served with green onion and kikurage (wood ear mushroon) in their restaurant.  At home, you can add your own toppings to personalize it.

http://www.marutai.co.jp/products/stick
博多一幸舎  Hakata Ikkosha
https://www.ikkousha.ca/

Front of the the ramen package.  It is a nice bright and attractive package.

The packaging for these noodles has a bright theme to it that hints at a deluxe product by the good use of gold highlights througout.  The tasty looking bowl of ramen is shown with some delectable ramen eggs and slices of pork in the bottom half of the package.  Above it is a white background that has golden dragons embossed on it with the Japanese sun highlighted at the top of the name of the restaurant in Kanji characters.  The golden section at the top of the package with red print to indicate this line of premium ramen fits in very well with the rest of the package design!  Nicely done.

Back of the package showing the nutritional information and cooking directions.

Closeup of the cooking directions. It has a two minute cooking time after putting the noodles into boiling water, and really odd amount of water to add at 470 mL.  They should have used a larger soup base packet or something instead or somehting.

You get a bundle of dried noodles, a dried ingredients packet with green onions and kikurage, and a liquid soup base packet.

Closeup of the nutritional information.  This dried noodle has 16.5 grams of fat.  That is like a regular fried package of instant noodles.  But in this case, the fat is from the soup, not the noodles, so I'm expecting something really tasty.

I cooked up this batch of noodles and there was a great savoury aroma coming from the soup. The soup was an appealing golden brown colour, which combined with the aroma, was a sign of good things to come.  My first taste of the soup let me know it tasted great too with a flavour that lived up to the aroma of the soup.  The soup was a deliciously the smooth tonkotsu style broth with a great mouth feel and meaty/shoyu notes to it for  a really satisfying taste.  Between this and the Seikyoken ramen I had before this, this one was slightly better in my opinion, but both are winners.  The noodles are slightly thicker and have a good chew to them too.  This ramen soup is one I'll buy again for sure and the higher amount of fat in the soup definitely would be adding to the flavour and texture of it in a good way.

The finished bowl of Premium Ikkousha Tonkotsu Ramen.  I added additional green onions and some slices of roast turkey to it.  This was yummy.  You can see lots of little green onions and some brown bit of kikurage mushroom in the soup.

1. Marutai Famous Stores Premium Nagahamaya Tonkotsu Ramen Review 
2. Marutai Famous Stores Premium Seiyoken Tonkotsu Ramen Review
3. Marutai Famous Stores Premium Ikkousha Tonkotsu Ramen Review
4. Kyushu Marugoto Ramen Pack By Marutai Reviews
   

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