I saw a Pulmuone Tonkotsu Miso Ramen kit at Costco Canada the other day and bought it, of course. They were in the refrigerated foods section where they sell gnocchi, fresh ravioli, pre-cooked pot roasts, etc. This is important as these kits are refrigerated, not frozen or dried. They are pretty heavy packages that weigh a few pounds as there are two pouches of liquid soup (no water needs to be added), two pouches of cooked pork chashu, two pouches of fresh ramen noodles, and two pouches of dehydrated green onions inside.
Each package contains two meals, which works out to be about $9.25 per meal, which isn't bad for ramen that contains real soup, fresh noodles, and meat. At a ramen restaurant these days, you're paying $14 and up for a bowl of ramen. These would be good if you wanted a change of pace from instant noodles, want to eat at home, or don't have any ramen restaurants nearby. I found the nutritional information disingenuous as it shows each meal is 2 servings, which basically makes one bowl. Their nutritional info states that a serving has 17 grams of fat, lots of sodium, 45% of RDA, and 11 grams of protein. So double that for an actual serving in a bowl, which I'll show you later.
Ramen in a restaurant isn't health food and instant ramen isn't health food either, but I eat both kinds. The broths tend to be high in sodium and fat, so eating it every day might not be a good idea, but it isn't worse than a cheeseburger and fries either - so watch what you eat. With ramen soup, you can often reduce the amount of fat or sodium in your intake by drinking less of the soup, which is a catch-22 as the soup is actually the #1 component in ramen, followed by noodles and toppings. After saying all this, I do think this tonkotsu miso ramen is a pretty good deal and well crafted for your dining pleasure.
https://www.pulmuonefoodsusa.com/product_category/ramen/
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| Big Costco stack of tonkotsu miso ramen! That's a lot of soup. |
Pulmuone is a Korean company that has set up an American subsidiary that makes all types of refrigerated and frozen products, from noodles, rice cakes, dumplings, and more. I tried another of their refrigerated products a few years back (I can't remember which kind of noodle it was, but I wasn't all that impressed). Still, when I saw these ramen kits my curiosity made me pick one up to have a look at. I'm glad I did, as this kit was heavy with liquid soup, which is already a winning criterion as long as the soup is good. When I looked at the contents I decided to buy it and cooked a package up the next day. This isn't a new product down in the USA, as there are reviews going back to 2021, but it is new to Canada.
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| The front of a package. Looks like a tasty soup represented in a bowl. While you have to add your own egg, there was plenty of chashu pork in the package per bowl. |
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| Directions and ingredients on the back. You can either boil the soup in a pot or microwave it. I boiled it, but microwaving does look like it would work well. In either case, you need an appropriate heating container (something like glass if you microwave). |
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| Contents of a package of tonkotsu miso ramen. You can see the big bag of broth, fresh noodles, and fresh pork. The red sachet is the dried green onion. This is one serving of soup and noodles to me, and there is another in the package. |
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| One serving of ramen soup. |
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| Boil the soup at medium heat, and add the noodles for a minute or a minute and a half along with the pork. Stir the noodle block to loosen it up. |
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Your soup is now ready to add the green onion, which rehydrates very quickly.
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| The finished bowl of tonkotsu miso ramen is in one of my regular ramen soup bowls. As you can see, it makes one serving for me. |
A straight tonkotsu soup has a mild smell that comes from boiled bone and collagen. I always find it hard to describe what a regular tonkotsu smells like, as it is like describing cheese to someone who has never had cheese. This tonkotsu miso broth had a heavy, savoury smell of soy sauce, garlic, and earthy miso tones overall. The smell shifted from garlicky when the broth pouch was first opened to more miso-like as the broth warmed up in a pot. When the soup was ready to eat, it had the aroma of miso first and then the soy, garlic, and tonkotsu constituents.
The taste of the soup pretty much matched the aroma. It was full of flavour and umami from the miso, soy sauce, and garlic. The flavour had a definite miso component with garlic and soy sauce right behind it, and I really didn't notice the saltiness up front that must have been there. There was enough zip in the soup from the garlic component, which even lingered on the tongue afterwards. When you look at the ingredient list for the soup, it lists miso paste, soy sauce, and then garlic. The broth's texture had the smooth creaminess expected of tonkotsu from dissolved collagen. I think this soup will satisfy a lot of people for its tastiness.
The ramen noodles in this soup were good. I would say they are of a medium thickness with a good chew and a clean break to them. In my soup, I added a soft-boiled egg that went along really well with the soup. The soup also had bits of shelf fungus, corn, and bamboo shoots from the soup pouch. The green onions were actually oniony and added some colour and zip to the soup. The meat was tender and marinated with a nice pork flavour and a hint of sweetness.
I'd buy this ramen soup again on a fairly regular basis as long as Costco keeps stocking it. I've tried other premade ramen kits that are frozen or fresh from a ramen shop before, and this stacks up nicely and is very competitive in terms of pricing. This soup stacks up well against many other instant tonkotsu shoyu or tonkotsu soups with black garlic, etc., that I have reviewed over the years.
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| Closeup of the noodles and a piece of pork. |
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