Yamadai New Touch Hakodate Shio Ramen Bowl Review

 I picked up a variety box of Yamadai New Touch instant ramen bowls awhile back and have been working my way through them. There were three bowls out of the six that I hadn't had before. The first of these new bowls is the Hakodate Shio (salt) Ramen Bowl. Hakodate is a port town that in on the south coast of Hokkaido and it is famous for its salt ramen. Shio broths are typically lighter than shoyu (soy sauce) based broths with a lighter taste and clearer soup. 

This shio ramen is made with a pork and chicken stock with the aroma of seafood from Hokkaido kelp and scallops. It is unusual to also have a type of rolled tofu in it that I haven't seen before. It almost looks like a piece of dried toast rusk.

Lid of the Shio Ramen Bowl showing a big bowl of ramen soup that highlights the chashu pork, the tofu roll, menma, and green onions on top of ramen noodles. The big characters say Hakodate. The top part of the bowl shows an aerial view of Hakodate.

Three quarter view of the bowl.

Cooking directions, ingredients and manufacturing info.

Nutritional info, warnings, contact info, and allergens

Another view of the bowl.

The contents of the bowl. You have the noodle block, the dried tofu in the red sachet, the dried pork, green onions and menma (bamboo shoot) in the black sachet, and the liquid soup pouch on the right.

The sachet with the dried tofu. Soak it well it says.

Bottom of the lid with some additional info about the soup. Mainly about the flavour with kelp and scallops playing a big role.

All the toppings for the ramen laid out on top of the noodle block. Add boiling water and wait 4 minutes.

I enjoyed this noodle bowl.  The soup was light in flavour with a salty taste that had a meaty note to it with additional umami from the slight fishiness of the kelp and scallops. Not too heavy on the seafood flavours, but they are definitely present, and it reminded me a bit of won ton soup broth. 

The noodles were firm and chewy, rehydrating nicely. The tofu roll was interesting as it really had a soaked, bread-like consistency and had the flavour of the soup for the most part. The slice of pork was meaty, pretty much your typical piece of dehydrated ramen pork. The veggies added a bit of a nice garnish and this ramen bowl was quite good overall.

The finished soup with the liquid soup base added. It looks tasty.

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