This was the third of the ramen bowls I had from the "Yamadai New Touch Amazing Noodles Summer Fukubako Western Japan" ramen box of six kinds of instant ramen bowls. You expect a tasty bowl of ramen any time it mentions shoyu and backfat, and I wanted to find out if this Kyoto Backfat Shoyu ramen lived up to that!
Kyoto is a city rich in history, a former capital of feudal Japan, and it is known for fine cuisine, but it also has its own varieties of down to earth ramen. One of these varieties is a shoyu ramen with a soup made of pork and chicken with a soy base. One enhancement of this dish is the addition of pork backfat (aka seabura) to make a tastier and heavier dish. The city is a college town too so you have students who would enjoy cheap and filling food.
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The lid of the New Touch Kyoto Backfat Shoyu Ramen Bowl. The big characters in the middle mean Kyoto. The picture displayed shows a pretty tasty looking bowl of ramen soup with pieces of menma, green onions, noodles, and a round piece of chashu pork. I kind of like lids like this as they set the tone for your dining experience. Little pieces of back fat are floating in the soup.
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A 3/4 view of the bowl. Looks like a white ramen bowl. These bowls are like an actual ramen bowl in size rather than a cup.
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Ingredients and producer information.
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Nutritional information on the left and directions, warning, and contact information on the right. Despite having backfat, there are only about 17 grams of fat, like a regular instant noodle because the noodles are not fried. If you want less sodium and fat, don't drink all the soup.
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There were three sachets inside the bowl. From the left. The pink sachet is a dried menma (bamboo shoots) and dehydrated chashu pork. The middle is a big sachet of green onions. The red sachet is the liquid shoyu soup base. Liquid soup bases are the best! The noodle disc is of thin dried noodles.
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I added in all the dried ingredients and poured in boiling water up to the fill line.
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Information about the Kyoto shoyu back fat ramen. The backfat is firm and provides a natural richness. There are two types of oil in the tare for the soup and garlic and chili pepper are added to give the soup a bit of punch.
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The rehydrated noodles and ingredients after the required 5 minutes of soaking. I then added in the liquid soup base which is the brown cloud on the bottom left. There are a lot of green onions, but I think ramen and green onions go hand in hand.
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I stirred in the soup base to produce this tasty looking broth. There is a thin sheen of oil on the top and little particles of backfat. It looks good!
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My impressions of this ramen bowl started with the herbal smell of the green onions. The scent filled the air when the packet was opened. This is a good thing and the amount of green onions was generous. I noticed the noodles were thinner than usual, but expected it would go well with the soup.
The soup was a rich brown colour that smelled deliciously savoury. The scent of onions, shoyu, and pork were very nice blended together. The taste of the soup had a nice hit of umami followed by the salt in the broth. The backfat added a richness to the soup and any texture adds a silkiness to the soup.
The bit of pepper and chili pepper added just a bit of zippiness too. You had green onion with every mouthful. The noodles had a decent bite and a slightly easier break than some, but they were still good noodles. The pork was tasty and added a nice meaty bite to things and the menma added a bit of slightly crunchy chewiness. This was an excellent instant ramen to try. Too bad I only have one!
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A closeup of the noodles and chashu pork.
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