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 a two pouches of dehydrated green onions inside.
Each package contains two meals that work out to be about $9.25 per meal which isn't bad for a 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 you don't have any ramen restaurants nearby. I did find the nutritional information is disingenuous as it shows each meal is 2 servings, where it 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 like I'll show you later.
Ramen isn't health food and instant ramen isn't health food either, but I eat both kinds. The broths tend of 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 setup an American subsidiary that makes all type 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 - already a winning criteria 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 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 a medium heat, add the noodles for a minute or 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 rehydrate very quickly.
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| The finished bowl of tonkotsu miso ramen 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. This tonkotsu miso broth had a savoury smell of soy sauce, garlic, and earthy miso tones to it, but not in a pungent way. I always hard to describe what a tonkotsu smells like as it is like describing cheese to someone who has never had cheese, but this soup did smell more of the other constituents than the tonkotsu. The broth was good due to the smooth creaminess of the soup, from dissolved collagen, and was full of flavour and umami from the combined ingredients. This tonkotsu miso broth was far richer and stronger in taste, with me noticing the garlic more afterwards. There was even some spice that lingered on the tongue so I think this soup will satisfy a lot of people.
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 to it that went along with the soup really well. The soup also had bits of shelf fungus, corn, and bamboo shoot 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 soup with black garlic, etc., that I have reviewed other the years.
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| Closeup of the noodles and a piece of pork. |
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