7-11 Gold Premium Tomita Tonkotsu Instant Ramen Bowl Review

Today I'm reviewing the 7-11 Gold Tomita Tonkotsu Instant Ramen bowl. There isn't much suspense in the review for this bowl as it is excellent and a good buy for a food souvenir from Japan. I bought this noodle bowl in May of 2025 at 7-11 in Tokyo. Seven Eleven previously had an excellent instant ramen bowl from Nakiryu that has been discontinued, but this is one of several other exclusive 7-11 ramen bowls that are just as tasty.

This tonkotsu ramen bowl recipe was prepared under the supervision of  Osamu Tomita, who is a high caliber ramen chef. Tomita trained at a famous shop called Taishoken and then went on to open several restaurants of his own. The documentary about ramen, "Ramen Heads," is all about him and his ramen. His shop Chuka Soba Tomita is famous and has been called the #1 shop in Japan and it specializes in tonkotsu (pork bone broth) ramen, particularly tsukemen.

It is said that this exclusive ramen to 7-11 tries to replicate the experience of having restaurant quality noodles, so effort has been put into have the noodles and soup harmonize together for a great taste and eating experience. A very rich pork bone soup that is full of umami combines with chewy noodles make this a really good bowl of noodles.

3/4 view of the ramen bowl. The graphic design is both simple, yet very classy and elegant.

The lid of the bowl.

The big gold characters down the middle translate as Tomita, the the smaller gold characters say "Chuka Soba" or Chinese Noodles. It then says "limited main store" in the red circle and rich pork bone ramen in the text underneath. The picture at the top right is of Tomita and it say supervised by him and fragrant flavour oil under that. The design of this bowl is almost like a yin / yang motif with the left half of the bowl showing some delicious looking ramen with a slice of pork, bamboo shoots, and green onion on a rich broth with droplets of oil on the surface.  The right side of the bowl is all black with gold flowing line motif. The sides of the bowl are also black, giving it a simple and elegant appearance that is highlighted by gold characters and trim throughout.

The side of the bowl. Showing Tomita and the main store and identifying the bowl as a tonkostsu ramen.

Nutritional information and ingredients. This soup tastes really good partially because of the amount of flavour oil and fat in it like a real bowl of ramen. Flavour has to come from somewhere.

Preparation directions. There are a lot of steps.

1. Peel the lid halfway back and remove the four pouches.

2. Add the dry toppings on top of the noodles (meat, green onions, bamboo shoot). Pour boiling water up to the fill line and close the lid.

3. Place the three oil and sauce pouches on top of the lid to allow the heat to liquify the fat and oil. You need to do this so you can extract the contents easily.

4. Add the special pork oil (pouch 1) after the noodles have rehydrated for 4 to 5 minutes.  Mix well. You need to add oil after rehydrating the noodles as the oil prevents the noodles from rehydrating as well as it seals up pores.

5. Add in the soup sauce (pouch 2) and mix well.

6. Add in the special oil (pouch 3) and mix well.

7. You are now ready to eat the noodles! You will be smelling something really good by this point.

Ingredients and manufacturers info.  This product was manufactured by Myojo Foods. They make a ton of instant ramen for their own brands too that are very good.

Warnings and instructions. Bowl is a little munched from being in transit.

Another view of the bowl.

You get quite a few sachets inside the bowl. There are three liquid packets and one of dried ingredients along with the noodle block.

The non-fried, dried noodle block.

Pork oil, pouch 1.

Liquid soup packet, pouch 2.

Special flavour oil, pouch 3.

Dried ingredients sachet. Dehydrated pork, bamboo shoots, and green onion.

Dried ingredients on top of the noodles.

Warming the oil and sauce packets after pouring boiling water on the noodles and toppings.

Adding in the pork oil. It is transparent.

Adding in the soup base.  You can see the colour doesn't change much until you stir.

The soup is starting to take a rich golden brown colour after stirring in the soup base. Smells great too. I'm adding in pouch 3, the special oil which shows as larger oil globs on the surface.

After stirring everything together one last time, the noodles are ready to eat.

While you are preparing the soup a savoury and fragrant aroma begins to fill the room. It smells like it should taste really good. This is a more complex soup base as there were three oil and sauce pouches used to create the texture and flavour.

Sipping the soup first, it tasted rich, slightly creamy like a tonkotsu should be, and had the porky taste that is particular to tonkotsu broth made of boiled pork bones. The broth is darker than a plain tonkotsu due a base with soy sauce, yeast, and other deep flavourings. Intense flavour permeates this soup so it is just excellent and full of umami that included a hit of salt at the end of a sip. The noodles were nice and chewy with a clean bite through them at the end. The pork was a nice touch and so are the menma, but the star of the show is the soup and then the noodles. A thin layer of oil can be seen coating the top of the soup, but that is partially where all the flavour is coming from.

This noodle bowl gets a top rating of YUMMY! The soup reminded me of the very rich tonkotsus you can get from tsukemen noodles where you dip thick noodles into a dense soupy sauce and then slurp. 

Closeup of the chashu pork.

Closeup of the noodles and a bamboo shoot.

I'm mostly done the bowl now and it tasted really good. Wish I had another one.

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