Sanyo Foods Keika Kumamoto Tonkotsu Instant Ramen Review - Famous Restaurant Series

This review for Keika Kumamoto Tonkotsu ramen is one of a pair of review of Sanyo Foods Famous Restaurant Series of instant ramen bowls.  The other review is for the Junren Sapporo Miso Instant Ramen Bowl.

Who doesn't like a good tonkotsu ramen with all of its velvety, lush mouthfeel and savoury umami?  Tonkotsu ramen originated in 1937 in Kurume near Kumamoto on the island of Kyushu, so it has been around for a long time.  Keika Ramen Honten has been in business since 1955 and specializes in Kumamoto's tonkotsu broth stewed from pork bones with ma-yu (black garlic and sesame oil).

3/4 view of the Keika tonkotsu ramen bowl.

View of the lid of the bowl.  It has the Keika logo prominently displayed across the middle in bright white on red.  The bottom half of the lid shows the tasty tonkotsu broth.  You can almost see how viscous it is.

Side of the ramen bowl with the Keika logo.

Preparation directions

Nutritional Information.  These noodles are non-fried and the fat content comes from the rich soup.

Manufacturing information and ingredients.

The contents of the bowl.  A dried noodle block, dried toppings, red packet is soy sauce oil, and the green packet is the concentrated tonkotsu base.

Dried noodles.

Closeup of the dried toppings including the piece of chashu pork.

The dried toppings on the noodles.  None of the liquid soup base is added until after adding boiling water and letting the noodles rehydrate.

The rehydrated noodles with the packet of soy sauce oil and the concentrated tonkotsu base added in.

The completed soup with everything mixed together.

This Kumamoto ma-yu tonkotsu has a great deal of flavour to it. Bits of blackened garlic add a punch to it too.  You can smell the garlic from the broth.  The soup was rich and thick. Even though the smell of garlic was there, the garlic flavour was mild and went well with the slight creaminess of the tonkotsu broth. It was a good tasting tonkotsu soup.  The noodles rehydrated well, were of a normal thickness with a good chew and bite.  They were good noodles.  The chashu was pretty bland in flavour though, but it had a good meaty texture.  This ramen bowl is recommended and I actually bought two of these to to eat.

Closeup of the noodles and chashu

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