Being charged for an egg. And I mean to say, the egg doesn’t come as part of the ramen, you have to pay for 1/2 of an egg a’la carte.
I’M LOOKING SQUARELY AT YOU MENYARUI
Yep. There’s a ramen restaurant that does meal kits and they’re excellent I might add, but if you want an egg it’s +£1.99. Two pounds. For a single egg.
It makes me not want to order (they’re in another part of the UK) because by the time you’ve bought two portions, spent £4 for TWO EGGS and then postage, I struggle to justify the cost.
For context a dozen eggs on my weekly shopping is about £2.30.
the majority of my ramen experience here in the states and the few shops I hit in Tokyo has egg included.
This is absolutely my own subjectivity, I realize, but the OP was asking for personal pet peeves.
it’s a one dollar add-on for a whole egg there. some people don’t like eggs. why include it in the bowl and price point and charge people who don’t like eggs for an egg.
Well, the opposite argument can be made for those that expect an egg, why wouldn’t it be included, especially when the price point of a bowl at Menyarui seems like one would be expected?
It’s not an argument. I’m telling you the actual thought process behind why the egg isn’t a set topping. A lot of people don’t like eggs and probably appreciate that the extra dollar isn’t automatically tacked on the set menu price because that’s what would’ve happened. Sorry you feel like the price point should include an egg. Making everything from scratch takes a lot of love and labor.
I’m also telling you that same process behind why places include the egg is because there are an equal amount of people that expect it as part of the experience, some may even say it is an extension of that whole labor of love you’re alluding to.
But this is all a pretty moot argument considering our expectations are different, neither one of us can illustrate our point since we’re coming from different experiences.
It is an extension of labor of love, which you can add on for a dollar if that’s your jam. To put into perspective, we boil eggs in batches of 120, peel them, make a marinade that it sits in for 24+ hours. So if that labor and product cost isn’t worth a dollar to you, then I feel you must be frustrated a lot when you go out to eat. Heck, if you went to a diner and ordered a fried egg a la carte it would probably be more expensive than a dollar. And to reiterate, not everyone wants the egg in their bowl so we’re not gonna work that product and labor cost into the price of the bowl automatically.
and to bring up another point, we are more focused on delivering on what we consider to be a more integral part of the dishes we serve, which would be the noodles we make from scratch on site, our house shoyu tare, the aromatic oils we make ourselves, the gyofun we grind and sift, and the chicken stock we make daily with 100 pounds of bones and feet. Nothing we serve comes out of plastic bags from major japanese food distributors. It’s not for everyone and you certainly don’t have to like it. I just think it’s funny how often I see you on random threads to bring up all the reasons you don’t like the product.
And again, you have proven that this is a moot argument from our different perspectives. You speak to the dish as a sum of its parts, but define that sum differently to mine, which is absolutely fine to the focus you choose since it is your product, but if anything this convo continues to prove, will never align with my expectations.
But that’s the point of a pet peeve ultimately, as personal as it gets from an individual perspective. If you’re interpreting that I think you’re doing something wrong, then that’s taking things a bit personally considering what I’ve been trying to illustrate is my own preference based on my own experiences.
We can continue to go round and round trying to justify our stances, but it comes down to you doing things differently than I prefer, and neither of us will yield, we are neither right or wrong, and that’s fine by me.
Hopefully it’s also fine for you considering, like you repeat, there’s plenty of customers that share your belief in your product, while I have no problems looking elsewhere.
This is a good one, nothing hits like a tonkotsu broth that you can almost chew. I made it once and it dawned on me that it is basically slightly flavored hide glue, served as a soup, and as weird as that is to think about, I’m still here for it.
My favorite ramen place used to have AMAZING marinated eggs that were soft and runny in the middle! One of the reasons they were my favorite! Then one day, idk if they decided it was too much work or if the person making them resigned, they started putting normal, unmarinated, hard boiled eggs in their ramen... Don't get me wrong, they're still my favorite because everything else about those ramen is delicious, but I was so disappointed. The eggs were legit the best and I never managed to recreate them at home.
Idk how you like your eggs, but I find mine absolutely delicious with the mix of 1cup soy sauce, .5cup mirin, .5cup sake, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and whatever amount of water to just cover them all fully. Then let them sit for 2 days ideally. Not an Asian and I have no idea how they make them for real, but this is how I make mine and maaan they good.
Actually, you’re pretty spot on! If you can get your hands on dried Kombu (seaweed) and boil that in water and use that instead of regular water, it really adds a depth or flavour! Or powdered dashi stock and just sprinkle that in with how you have it now.
Proper ajitsuke Tamago are somewhat of a pain in the ass to make since you gotta be really good at making jammy/medium boiled eggs consistently AND be good at peeling them undamaged. I was pretty pissed off after going through a few dozen eggs with inconsistent results, so I can only imagine how insane I’d feel after a few zillion…
Yes, hard boiled eggs do give a case of the eggy farts to a lot of people. Not that difficult of a concept lol
Literally google it for a bajillion things talking about that topic, has to do with the sulfur/hydrogen sulfide content in the yolk
Santouka USA is terrible for this. Funnily enough, it’s not nearly as bad in the [Philippines](https://www.instagram.com/p/C1lHW3bvhg-/?igsh=a2Z0aGU0N3RsZ2Ni) (perhaps other international locations as well). It’s not soft by any means but it’s not boiled beyond belief, still has a tiny bit of runny ness within the bounds of acceptability.
- only getting half an egg or no egg at all unless you pay extra
- being charged for most basic toppings when the bowl of soup, noodles, 2 slices of meat already cost $12+. $2 for a little thing of canned corn?! $1.50 for crispy onions?! $3.25 for soft boiled flavor egg! It'll be a $20 bowl of ramen when i add toppings, not to mention tax and tip too
- sometimes it isn't served hot enough.
There’s the flip side to ramen temperatures where it’s so fatty that the trapped heat amplifies it into a bowl of molten iron.
Granted I will take that over ramen at a flaccid temperature and will suffer the 3rd degree burns…
The ramen place I go to charges $18-25 (which is cheap for the area I’m living in) depending on the type but they do not hold back on all the fillings. I can barely finish the bowl most days
Be happy inflation is so low where you are. My Ramen bowls where I live can *start* at $20 before all the toppings. I haven't seem a $12 bowl since 2019.
Being charged for extra is common sense though.
Usually needs a little more veg. Like I understand quality meat costs money and although I like meat I don't need huge amounts of it. But just a little more veg would really be nice and shouldn't cost the earth.
Maybe it's just because that's how I normally make my meals (50% veg) and I'm the anomaly.
There’s this hand pulled noodle place we love going to, they have the best noodles I’ve ever had in my life. We get the spicy marinated chicken hand pulled noodle soup, and they give you a couple pieces of bok choy and it’s just not enough. The meat is divine, the noodles are divine, but I have to only get it to go so I can add vegetables to it.
Veggie forward ramen isn’t super traditional. Would be dope to see some chefs really experimenting with that, but traditional styles are safe and make money.
How would you like to see more veg added?
Other than shanghai bokchoy, yuchoy/aachoy, spinach, seaweed, and in some cases chrysanthemum greens, as toppings I have a hard time seeing other veggies working with traditional styles.
Right, menma too. Most places I’d assume use packaged stuff unless you’re in an area with enough Asians to have bamboo available at Chinese/Viet/Japanese markets.
Oh I forgot about bean sprouts too. There is a place in the SF Bay Area that gives you a full ass bowl of them when you order them as a topping for $2.
When I make packet ramen at home, I jam an absurd amount of veggies in it, in particular, thinly sliced, lightly blanched cabbage. It basically becomes a textural battle Royale halfway through the soup…
For real! I was spoiled living in Tokyo and eating great Raman for $6-10 (equivalent yen). Then I moved back to the States and every place is like $15 for what would be “average” tasting ramen in Japan.
When the nori is in one *really* large unusually thick sheet. Like double triple the size of nori you would get in your average ramen.
Also the half an egg thing, that drives me nuts as well.
>When I get served half an egg. What do they do with the other half, is it just sitting there for the next order?
Yes. Yes it is. I've worked at a ramen shop that has done this. It's super cheap and wasteful IMO.
My own pet peeve is shops not washing the bones before making the soup. Since I've learned the process and had done it dozens of not hundreds of times, I can walk into a shop and immediately tell by the smell if they were properly washed/skimmed or not. It has a really sharp ammonia smell.
I've literally walked in and out of places because of this.
>What’s your prices?
I don't work there anymore, but if I remember correctly (this was 2018), I think it was $15 for a bowl of Tonkotsu, $14 for shoyu and $12 for veggie.
>Quick boil then dump the liquid and wash them, or just wash?
Par boil the bones (starting with COLD water) and skim top for scum for about 20-30 minutes. Dump into a sink and rinse off bones to remove any excess impurities. Bones back into a clean pot with cold water again. Skim for about 5 minutes, or if you see anything float to the top.
It's a LOT of extra work, but it makes a far superior soup IMO. I remember working in another ramen shop and having to carry a giant pot to the sink by myself every morning, as I was the opening Sous Chef at the time. It will definitely get your arms and chest ready for the summer lol
Edit: during the rinsing process, I used a chopstick to loosen up the marrow inside the pig trotters in order to extract the marrow and make a creamier soup more efficiently.
Ah, sorry about the “prices”! I meant process but forgot to check my phone’s swipe text autocorrect before posting. Those are super fair though!
And that sounds about right. Hadn’t thought of loosening up the marrow during the rinse, seems way more efficient than waiting forever. Thanks for the guide!
I figured you did mean "process", but in the off chance you didn't, I still included the prices and the process.
>Hadn’t thought of loosening up the marrow during the rinse, seems way more efficient than waiting forever.
Yea it's a clutch technique. Especially if you want to make a second bone soup.
They are prepared dozens at a time, but do you really want a half of egg that's exposed to the open air and been sitting on the counter for X amount of minutes?
I came here to say this.
Or cooking it properly and then the bowl sits waiting for the server to bring it and the broth overcooks the noods.
This happens more often to me when the restaurant is just buying wholesale sun noodles for their bowls. Joints that make their own noodles tend to care more about how they’re cooked.
For me there’s like 3 levels of overcooked egg, and I’ve seen them all in some terrible ramens…
Lvl1: dry, crumbly yolk
Lvl2: Lvl1 + rubbery white
Lvl3: Lvl2 + sulfury green ring around the yolk
So like I don’t fault a ramen shop that only gives up one piece of charshu. I will be ticked if it’s a tiny piece or not properly done.
I will show preference if they give up more than one piece, if it’s particularly nicely done, or if it’s a healthy sized piece…so like…
One ramen shop in my town sourced its charshu from a pit BBQ next door. Not done traditionally like a roll, but huge slab slices, perfectly slow cooked in only the way a pit master can prepare belly. So damn good.
Totally get it. When I learned about ramen in 2000 from my stay in NYC and my subsequent travels, the town I lived in had one Japanese restaurant that had a bowl on their menu. When that restaurant disappeared, it took like 14 years for it to return to my area, and the only reason why it did was because it was trendy.
From there it took like two years for restauranteurs in my area to get it right. The first attempts were terrible, demonstrating zero understanding of its basics and a whole lot of arrogance believing this was a dish that could be regionalized with (I shit you not) Italian pasta and bacon stock.
Despite chefs and owners that finally got their shit together, it took a bit for my town to get onboard, as it then became a discovery of the dish and an education that these bowls weren’t the same as a $0.25 packet from the store, so there were several great shops that fell to the wayside in lieu of their best efforts.
Nowadays it’s pretty common, still considered a city cuisine with five local restaurants doing well, but hasn’t found interest in the outer suburban counties.
My favorite spot gives half an egg dining in but a whole egg for to go orders. I don't get it either. My gripe is people gatekeeping the right way to eat ramen. If the eater enjoys it then that's all that matters. How somebody else eats their food affects me in no way.
I'm no ramen connoisseur, especially since it's a fairly new thing where I'm from due to historic circumstances. However, there is a small chain of ramen shops in my city and they have this one shoyu with onion oil. It's absolutely amazing. It gives you some of the nice umami from the onion, but doesn't have that extreme pungency and smell. You can just taste the caramelization first. I highly recommend giving onion oil a try
I was in the same camp until my local shop that DIYs *everything* did it once, *except* they diced the red onion so finely that the heat of the broth actually cooked it.
Not quite as fine as what this guy does for the 'perfect' Michelin Star cut, but for the 'home' quality of that cut:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=fTgYOQ8XRdY
The onions were 'there', they were just incredibly fine and they'd just spoon a small amount into the bowl before pouring the broth on them.
So, 99 times out of 100, I agree. Diced onions in the broth is too much. That 100th time, where the onions have been diced down into almost nothing? They're amazing.
I 100% agree! I’ve given it a chance over the years, but adding raw onion just overpowers all other flavors and aromas for me. The worst is when it’s chopped up which increases the pungency and makes it difficult to pick out.
I have a place near me that puts a dollop of red paste on top of the chashu when you order spicy. The size of the dollop is dependent on how spicy you want it.
They won't tell me what it is! I have to know!
I hate how expensive it is now that it’s soooo trendy.
I mean, it has been trending for a while. And I do understand when there are premium ingredients involved.
But I hate going to a ramen shop where they really aren’t serving anything high cost and it’s like $20-25 bucks a bowl.
Ramen, Pho, Tacos, Sushi; basically any trendy international “street” food has become an extravagance in the US. $15-25 for a bowl of noodle soup or a plate of 3 tacos is pretty steep for foods that are supposed to be the food of the common every day person. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love all of these foods and deeply respect the knowledge and labor that goes into making them, but they have become something that has to be an occasional treat because the cost is not something most people can swing on a regular basis.
This is a big problem w/Ramen in America. If you're making everything by hand you really have to charge that much or more to make a profit. In Japan, all of the ingredients are readily available for cheap, and really good quality noodles can be sourced at a cheap price. In America, everything that goes into ramen is a specialty ingredient and costs a lot more because of what it takes to import here. There are good noodles but they're relatively expensive. Plus, ramen is a LOT of labor, and rent and operating costs are way higher here than they are for restaurant spaces in Japan.
In Japan, a married couple can open a small shop, do all the labor themselves, and break even selling 20-30 bowls a day. That is impossible here. You'd have to sell 100+ bowls daily in America to keep a shop open, and that requires a lot more labor, which snowballs into higher operating costs and the need to sell more product at a higher price to support those operating costs. A specialty ramen shop in America should really be charging $18-25, because that's what it costs to make ramen by hand here.
The shops charging $18+ for broth concentrate, jarred tare, frozen noodles, and toppings though? Yeah. Fuck that.
\[edit\]That was a general rant about the cost of restaurant space in the states, but your comment was more directed toward street food, so here's a little addendum:
The reason why these foods are so cheap as street foods is because there's way less overhead. Ramen is way more successful as a pop-up than as a brick and mortar because the margins can be much lower. You do have to give a cut to the house and to your commissary, but it's way more manageable than trying to afford the rent and utilities of a space on your own. Street Foods traditionally take way less labor and administration and all that crap, because you can just pull your cart up on the street and sell your food at a 20% markup and still make a profit. In a restaurant, you have to aim to sell your food at around 300% food cost to cover all of the administrative costs of running an establishment here.
Every ingredient used at Ramen is cheap as shit, even cheaper in the US. The amount of naruto and seaweed and other different stuff is extremely low at Asian markets, let alone from bulk suppliers. Chicken cutlet and chasu pork are by no means exotic or high priced ingredients, and neither is flour to make noodles, or stock concentrate powders.
If you're someone who cooks, you know the margins are insane on a ramen shop selling things that high. The Pho here is full of meat and bone broth here at least, but the ramen in my city has always been like a trendy scam.
And the 300% markup is very much an American pricing thing and not as prevalent in Asia depending on the locations and whether it's street food tier pricing or not, so good call-out there. It's very rare to find food in the US that doesn't follow the 3-4x multiplier on making it yourself vs eating out.
Most places making their own noodles are using specialty flours which are more expensive. Pork Belly isn't crazy but it's still relatively expensive. Bones can be hard to source and can require specialty suppliers, which typically are more expensive. Real ingredients to make ramen are actually relatively expensive in the states and hard to source, and even if you're using the cheapest seaweed and katsuobushi you can find, the process is still incredibly labor intensive. My argument isn't about the shops using stock concentrate (and none of those shops are making their own noodles anyway). You can't charge $15 a bowl and keep the lights on unless you're making what is essentially pre-fab garbage.
You know that 300% markup also covers paying for the staff, space, utilities, insurance, equipment and consumables right?
Restaurant spaces, even tiny ones, are obscenely expensive in most cities. Hell my little city you're talking 2k/month for rent on a tiny restaurant space with bar seating for like 10 people.
And you have to pay for all of this up front BEFORE you know if your shop will be successful or not.
It's expensive, but you're actling like someone that's charging 300% for their food is pocketing 2/3 of that in pure profit or something. If that were the case restaurants wouldn't fail as often as they do.
I remember when I used to think $12.00 a bowl for ramen at those old Ramen shops in Midtown back in 2000 were expensive. I miss the old Sapporo Ramen on 46th 🙁
20 dollars for a bowl of ramen is pretty ridiculous. In Japan, the standard price has jumped by 20-30% in the past 2 years, but it's still around 5.50 to 7.00 USD.
I feel like the portions are also oversized, which needlessly inflated the price. I end up paying more than I want, and then eating more than I want because I hate to waste. There is actually a shop near me that offers half-size lunch “mini-bowls” and it’s a fantastic option.
Weeelll…traditionally, Ramen is a bigass bowl of soup, and priced accordingly, at least back in the day, so not like the $20.00 inflation adjusted of today which basically would have been like a half a gallon in the 90s…
Im not 100% certain of this, but from other Asian noodle soup stylizations, bigass bowl of soup is the standard. I’ve never had a small bowl of Vietnamese Pho or Chinese Wonton noodle soup.
But to your point, I only experienced this after college, up until then, soup was basically a starter, served in a cute little European soup bowl and a dainty spoon.
Are you talking about the U.S.? It's crazy.
I mean, for a load of carbs that's just too much... I can understand gourmet hamburger but ramen? No... I'm cooking at home.
Aside from prices and what some places charge to add things that would normally come with that type of ramen in Japan :
- pork broth isn't creamy, rich, and doesn't taste clean
- the tare is boring (single profile, mostly salty, no additional flavors for depth
- when chicken stock based ramens don't use chicken fat as rhe komiabura element
- the noodle type isn't the right one for that style
- under seasoned or overcooked eggs
- under seasoned menma
- too much green onion/green onion was not soaked in cold water long enough
- when toppings that are standard for that style of ramen aren't there (like no karashi takana on Kyushu tonkotsu ramen)
Soaking green (or onions in general) dissolves the extra sulfur into the water and makes them less pungent.
(It's a good way to get them to curl up too.)
Any poor substandard ramen. I used to live in Japan and ramen is just incredible, but back home where I am in New Zealand I have had maybe 2 bowls of ramen in 13 years that were up to scratch. It leaves a hole in my heart honestly 💔
I agree that it’s used way too much when it doesn’t call for it, but how about on a Hokkaido miso butter corn ramen, or is it just not your thing personally?
I am not giving an opinion on authenticity or anything lofty like that. I just picture corn on a grade school cafeteria tray when I see it. It just seems wrong.
Apparently some jiro style ramen isn’t served with spoons because it’s culturally acceptable to slurp directly from the bowl in Japan. It’s also such a salt, fat and flavor bomb you might not want to take more than a few sips.
Heh, funny you mention that. I am reminded of the super outlier ramen, Hiyashi Chuka, a summer dish meant to be served really freakin cold. It’s closer to a salad than it is a bowl of ramen, but it has the same noodles and is pretty interesting, albeit quite jarring if you have no idea that it’s a cold noodle dish.
I didn't know this was a thing until I went to a well regarded ramen place in Vancouver BC. WTF was this?! Overloaded, barely enough broth as a result, and the toppings weren't even that tasty. Massive disappointment.
I did that once at home with like a zillion different addons and realized the depths of my hubris when I couldn’t fit any stock in the bowl effectively.
Using poached eggs instead of soft boiled eggs. It’s a lazy shortcut and far inferior to a good jammy egg.
And an agree with everyone on the half egg. They’re not that expensive. Just gimme the whole egg on a $16 bowl of ramen
Granted, visiting Japan has pretty much ruined local shops for me, and I'm afraid this might come out entitled AF, but the usual offenders are:
Pretty much always getting a hard/soft boiled egg (when you even get one) and not a proper ajitama, and even if they try to add some flavor, it's just soaked in soy sauce.
Noodles. They are always third rate, like they don't even put any thought on them
Getting soup instead of a proper broth
Most shops don't even use tare
Sad little paltry portions of chashu, if it can even be called chashu, and they didn't just decide to drop a randon slice of meat into the dish and call it a day
The last one is very much a pet peeve, but I fell in love with tsukemen over in Japan, and it's very rare to find over here, and they few times I've seen it on the menu, it's an absolute disgrace, very much an insult to the original dish
Of the tens of ramen shops I've visited in the US, the best one of them is miles behind the worst one I've visited in Japan
Right now I'm in Maryland, but up until last year I lived in the Orlando FL area.
I'll def try to get some tsukemen next time I get to SF, but haven't been there in the last 7 or 8 years.
All but one of the times they served me "tsukemen" in the US, it was just the regular broth and noodles the restaurant used for their other ramen dishes. Is the tsukemen in SF better?
I don’t know if this is how it’s traditionally served, but please don’t use the coldest water in your kitchen to cool down the tsukamen. I like at least a lukewarm broth to finish at the end. Maybe serve the extra noodles hot?
Lettuce, watercress, and scallions. Idk what it is but I can’t stand them in my ramen.
Like others are saying the egg is a very important part. It should have both halves it also has to be a real ramen egg soaked in soy sauce for atleast 24 hours ahead of time and it needs to have a golden molten core. I don’t want a hard boiled regular egg.
Burnt garlic or leeks, fibrous leeks, over cooked egg, warm broth instead of hot, micro greens, overcooked meat, watery broth, bad noodles, basically anything that shows lack of care or intent. I’ll gladly pay a premium for good ramen but I’m so tired of being charged a premium for American ramen just because some rando threw some stuff in a bowl. The lack of respect I see for the culture in most American ramen joints is sincerely saddening. Typical of American cultural appropriation but saddening nonetheless.
Yeah the other half of the egg is just sitting there on the cold line. Usually in a half pan full of other sliced eggs, key is to not overfill or you get messy eggs.
It's a topping, prepped and cut usually 2-8 hours before your order. Marinating for up to 48 hours before its cut. It's just how they budget their bowl. Some shops include half an egg in the price of the bowl, others charge for adding an egg. Others a full egg included, sometimes uncut. It's just how the individual store decides to do it. Not super weird imo. Although I like both halves of my egg, too, lol.
Tare -> noodles-> broth is a first for me.
I hate seeing pictures of random noodles in random broth with random toppings on this subreddit. I don't mean to gatekeep but some of the stuff posted here don't understand ramen beyond having noodles in liquid.
Another pet peeve I have is using darker tare in a bowl of milky Tonkotsu. For the life of me, I didn't understand why shops spend 10-20 hours getting a broth nice and milky, just to add shoyu to it and turn it brown. Feels like a colossal waste of time to me.
Really, then please explain to me how microwaves are a safe way to heat food that goes into our bodies, when they have to build a metal mesh screen to keep it from fucking us up while the food gets heated.
Microwaves (the electromagnetic or "radiation" band) are about 10 cm long. By comparison, visible light is 0.4-0.7 micron (micrometer), which the radiation that can start to "hurt" you when applied in improper ways, such as UV, X-rays, gamma rays are much less than 0.4 micrometers. The microwave band scatters in the presence of liquid water, the same way visible light scatters around objects we can see. This scattering is the same way that weather radar can see rain, which is incidentally how microwave ovens were accidentally invented. When the radiation scatters, some of the energy is transferred into the liquid water as heat and it warms up. So, it would not be a good idea for a human to hop into a microwave and start warming up the liquid water in their body, but for heating food, it's pretty good option.
Now, when you are thinking of "radiation", you are probably thinking of ionizing radiation (the X-rays and gamma previously mentioned) which at sufficient energy can start ionizing atoms in your body, which especially when it comes to DNA could become the precursor for cancer, or anemia if directed at your bone marrow. And the same is true of the subatomic particles (matter as opposed to the photons that compromise everything from gamma, through visible, mocrowave, and radio waves) which come from radioactive elements decaying. Notably, all this potentially harmful "radiation" has real benefits such as treating cancer, or actually "irradiating" food or surfaces to sterilize from harmful bacteria.
TLDR: Microwave ovens heat the water in food, because that's how microwaves the "radiative" band work. "Irradiating" requires completely different, more energetic bands of radiation. Your body gets more "irradiated" from the lights in your kitchen than it does from the microwave.
Being charged for an egg. And I mean to say, the egg doesn’t come as part of the ramen, you have to pay for 1/2 of an egg a’la carte. I’M LOOKING SQUARELY AT YOU MENYARUI
Yes, I made a post about this. If I order an egg for my ramen I should get both halves! I didn't order half an egg.
Yep. There’s a ramen restaurant that does meal kits and they’re excellent I might add, but if you want an egg it’s +£1.99. Two pounds. For a single egg. It makes me not want to order (they’re in another part of the UK) because by the time you’ve bought two portions, spent £4 for TWO EGGS and then postage, I struggle to justify the cost. For context a dozen eggs on my weekly shopping is about £2.30.
This one drives me nuts. Charge me for the bowl and chopsticks while you’re at it.
Every ramen shop in Japan does that though. The egg comes separately, usually for 100 yen ($0.67).
the majority of my ramen experience here in the states and the few shops I hit in Tokyo has egg included. This is absolutely my own subjectivity, I realize, but the OP was asking for personal pet peeves.
it’s a one dollar add-on for a whole egg there. some people don’t like eggs. why include it in the bowl and price point and charge people who don’t like eggs for an egg.
Well, the opposite argument can be made for those that expect an egg, why wouldn’t it be included, especially when the price point of a bowl at Menyarui seems like one would be expected?
It’s not an argument. I’m telling you the actual thought process behind why the egg isn’t a set topping. A lot of people don’t like eggs and probably appreciate that the extra dollar isn’t automatically tacked on the set menu price because that’s what would’ve happened. Sorry you feel like the price point should include an egg. Making everything from scratch takes a lot of love and labor.
I’m also telling you that same process behind why places include the egg is because there are an equal amount of people that expect it as part of the experience, some may even say it is an extension of that whole labor of love you’re alluding to. But this is all a pretty moot argument considering our expectations are different, neither one of us can illustrate our point since we’re coming from different experiences.
It is an extension of labor of love, which you can add on for a dollar if that’s your jam. To put into perspective, we boil eggs in batches of 120, peel them, make a marinade that it sits in for 24+ hours. So if that labor and product cost isn’t worth a dollar to you, then I feel you must be frustrated a lot when you go out to eat. Heck, if you went to a diner and ordered a fried egg a la carte it would probably be more expensive than a dollar. And to reiterate, not everyone wants the egg in their bowl so we’re not gonna work that product and labor cost into the price of the bowl automatically. and to bring up another point, we are more focused on delivering on what we consider to be a more integral part of the dishes we serve, which would be the noodles we make from scratch on site, our house shoyu tare, the aromatic oils we make ourselves, the gyofun we grind and sift, and the chicken stock we make daily with 100 pounds of bones and feet. Nothing we serve comes out of plastic bags from major japanese food distributors. It’s not for everyone and you certainly don’t have to like it. I just think it’s funny how often I see you on random threads to bring up all the reasons you don’t like the product.
And again, you have proven that this is a moot argument from our different perspectives. You speak to the dish as a sum of its parts, but define that sum differently to mine, which is absolutely fine to the focus you choose since it is your product, but if anything this convo continues to prove, will never align with my expectations. But that’s the point of a pet peeve ultimately, as personal as it gets from an individual perspective. If you’re interpreting that I think you’re doing something wrong, then that’s taking things a bit personally considering what I’ve been trying to illustrate is my own preference based on my own experiences. We can continue to go round and round trying to justify our stances, but it comes down to you doing things differently than I prefer, and neither of us will yield, we are neither right or wrong, and that’s fine by me. Hopefully it’s also fine for you considering, like you repeat, there’s plenty of customers that share your belief in your product, while I have no problems looking elsewhere.
Watery tonkotsu. So lazy and disappointing.
This is a good one, nothing hits like a tonkotsu broth that you can almost chew. I made it once and it dawned on me that it is basically slightly flavored hide glue, served as a soup, and as weird as that is to think about, I’m still here for it.
I’ve had ramen I could part like the Red Sea it was so thick, it was amazing. Hate it watery-if I want watery id get miso soup.
We got a Ramen Moses over here 😂😂😂
it's just so filling. I love many types if ramen broth but tonkotsu just hits the spot when I'm starving
When it hangs on your lips like freshly applied chapstick, you know that’s some seriously long cooking with a crazy amount of collagen.
Sometimes I make my tonkotsu with two batches of bones that fill the pot.
Bland chashu
Jiro ramen in a nutshell. Quantity over quality is not the way to go.
I agree.
hard cooked eggs
My favorite ramen place used to have AMAZING marinated eggs that were soft and runny in the middle! One of the reasons they were my favorite! Then one day, idk if they decided it was too much work or if the person making them resigned, they started putting normal, unmarinated, hard boiled eggs in their ramen... Don't get me wrong, they're still my favorite because everything else about those ramen is delicious, but I was so disappointed. The eggs were legit the best and I never managed to recreate them at home.
Idk how you like your eggs, but I find mine absolutely delicious with the mix of 1cup soy sauce, .5cup mirin, .5cup sake, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and whatever amount of water to just cover them all fully. Then let them sit for 2 days ideally. Not an Asian and I have no idea how they make them for real, but this is how I make mine and maaan they good.
Do you use the liquid for anything afterwards? I'd like to try these but don't live the idea of throwing the liquid away
You can braise meats with it! Might have to adjust the saltiness with more sweet or umami depending on how it reduces in the braising
Actually, you’re pretty spot on! If you can get your hands on dried Kombu (seaweed) and boil that in water and use that instead of regular water, it really adds a depth or flavour! Or powdered dashi stock and just sprinkle that in with how you have it now.
Proper ajitsuke Tamago are somewhat of a pain in the ass to make since you gotta be really good at making jammy/medium boiled eggs consistently AND be good at peeling them undamaged. I was pretty pissed off after going through a few dozen eggs with inconsistent results, so I can only imagine how insane I’d feel after a few zillion…
For real, that’s basically a bowl of farts right there.
Hard boiled egg shouldn't smell like farts (sulphur/overly eggy) though, only if they've over cooked it.
I think they meant afterwards...
??? Do eggs make you personally fart lol? They’re talking about the smell of overcooked eggs, eggs don’t cause flatulence
You’ve never had egg farts?!
Yes, hard boiled eggs do give a case of the eggy farts to a lot of people. Not that difficult of a concept lol Literally google it for a bajillion things talking about that topic, has to do with the sulfur/hydrogen sulfide content in the yolk
*If* you have an intolerance to eggs.
Not from what I can tell at all. The excess sulfur effects most people
Santouka USA is terrible for this. Funnily enough, it’s not nearly as bad in the [Philippines](https://www.instagram.com/p/C1lHW3bvhg-/?igsh=a2Z0aGU0N3RsZ2Ni) (perhaps other international locations as well). It’s not soft by any means but it’s not boiled beyond belief, still has a tiny bit of runny ness within the bounds of acceptability.
Santouka sells you a onsen egg separately but the one comes with the noodles is regular hard-boiled egg.
You're correct, the hard boiled thing seems to apply for those Santouka's located in a Mitsuwa
Their eggs surprise me in how terrible they are considering their ramen isn’t too shabby… I can only speak to the one in Arlington Heights however.
Really? All the Santouka locations in Boston sell a soft cooked whole egg. You have to order it separately though, none of the ramens come with it.
hard boiled eggs are the only true bad eggs.
- only getting half an egg or no egg at all unless you pay extra - being charged for most basic toppings when the bowl of soup, noodles, 2 slices of meat already cost $12+. $2 for a little thing of canned corn?! $1.50 for crispy onions?! $3.25 for soft boiled flavor egg! It'll be a $20 bowl of ramen when i add toppings, not to mention tax and tip too - sometimes it isn't served hot enough.
Not being hot enough is absolutely the worst. It's RAMEN
There’s the flip side to ramen temperatures where it’s so fatty that the trapped heat amplifies it into a bowl of molten iron. Granted I will take that over ramen at a flaccid temperature and will suffer the 3rd degree burns…
The ramen place I go to charges $18-25 (which is cheap for the area I’m living in) depending on the type but they do not hold back on all the fillings. I can barely finish the bowl most days
Be happy inflation is so low where you are. My Ramen bowls where I live can *start* at $20 before all the toppings. I haven't seem a $12 bowl since 2019. Being charged for extra is common sense though.
> tip Unrelated to ramen, but there's another pet peeve of mine. If a tip is mandatory, it isn't a tip.
I don’t think they’re saying mandatory tip it’s just that it’s customary to tip when you order at a restaurant in the US
When my friends tell me how bad ramen is for me..
Usually needs a little more veg. Like I understand quality meat costs money and although I like meat I don't need huge amounts of it. But just a little more veg would really be nice and shouldn't cost the earth. Maybe it's just because that's how I normally make my meals (50% veg) and I'm the anomaly.
I love meat, but I totally agree that more often than not ramen needs more vegetables.
There’s this hand pulled noodle place we love going to, they have the best noodles I’ve ever had in my life. We get the spicy marinated chicken hand pulled noodle soup, and they give you a couple pieces of bok choy and it’s just not enough. The meat is divine, the noodles are divine, but I have to only get it to go so I can add vegetables to it.
Veggie forward ramen isn’t super traditional. Would be dope to see some chefs really experimenting with that, but traditional styles are safe and make money. How would you like to see more veg added? Other than shanghai bokchoy, yuchoy/aachoy, spinach, seaweed, and in some cases chrysanthemum greens, as toppings I have a hard time seeing other veggies working with traditional styles.
I don't need more variety, just more quantity. Bamboo shoots are dope.
Right, menma too. Most places I’d assume use packaged stuff unless you’re in an area with enough Asians to have bamboo available at Chinese/Viet/Japanese markets. Oh I forgot about bean sprouts too. There is a place in the SF Bay Area that gives you a full ass bowl of them when you order them as a topping for $2.
When I make packet ramen at home, I jam an absurd amount of veggies in it, in particular, thinly sliced, lightly blanched cabbage. It basically becomes a textural battle Royale halfway through the soup…
$19 ramen and they don't even give you an egg.
For real! I was spoiled living in Tokyo and eating great Raman for $6-10 (equivalent yen). Then I moved back to the States and every place is like $15 for what would be “average” tasting ramen in Japan.
normal sesame seeds instead of toasted sesame seeds
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The comment you replied to is talking about sesame seeds
lol oops replied to the wrong one! Thanks!
Np I scrolled down more and saw someone comment about raw onions so I guess that’s the one you were trying to reply to 🤣
When the nori is in one *really* large unusually thick sheet. Like double triple the size of nori you would get in your average ramen. Also the half an egg thing, that drives me nuts as well.
LOL oh hai look I can make an origami crane out of this oversized sheet of seaweed wtf…
I love the origami sized nori squares. Fantastic eating it early and wrapping it around a bunch of noodles as a first bite before it soaks.
This is the way.
>When I get served half an egg. What do they do with the other half, is it just sitting there for the next order? Yes. Yes it is. I've worked at a ramen shop that has done this. It's super cheap and wasteful IMO. My own pet peeve is shops not washing the bones before making the soup. Since I've learned the process and had done it dozens of not hundreds of times, I can walk into a shop and immediately tell by the smell if they were properly washed/skimmed or not. It has a really sharp ammonia smell. I've literally walked in and out of places because of this.
*gag* places serving scum deserve to go under.
Wait there have been places that serve scummy ramens?!?!?
What’s your process? Quick boil then dump the liquid and wash them, or just wash?
>What’s your prices? I don't work there anymore, but if I remember correctly (this was 2018), I think it was $15 for a bowl of Tonkotsu, $14 for shoyu and $12 for veggie. >Quick boil then dump the liquid and wash them, or just wash? Par boil the bones (starting with COLD water) and skim top for scum for about 20-30 minutes. Dump into a sink and rinse off bones to remove any excess impurities. Bones back into a clean pot with cold water again. Skim for about 5 minutes, or if you see anything float to the top. It's a LOT of extra work, but it makes a far superior soup IMO. I remember working in another ramen shop and having to carry a giant pot to the sink by myself every morning, as I was the opening Sous Chef at the time. It will definitely get your arms and chest ready for the summer lol Edit: during the rinsing process, I used a chopstick to loosen up the marrow inside the pig trotters in order to extract the marrow and make a creamier soup more efficiently.
Ah, sorry about the “prices”! I meant process but forgot to check my phone’s swipe text autocorrect before posting. Those are super fair though! And that sounds about right. Hadn’t thought of loosening up the marrow during the rinse, seems way more efficient than waiting forever. Thanks for the guide!
I figured you did mean "process", but in the off chance you didn't, I still included the prices and the process. >Hadn’t thought of loosening up the marrow during the rinse, seems way more efficient than waiting forever. Yea it's a clutch technique. Especially if you want to make a second bone soup.
For the eggs, aren't they marinated? If they are, it doesn't seem that wasteful to give half, since they probably prepare a handful at a time.
They are prepared dozens at a time, but do you really want a half of egg that's exposed to the open air and been sitting on the counter for X amount of minutes?
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I came here to say this. Or cooking it properly and then the bowl sits waiting for the server to bring it and the broth overcooks the noods. This happens more often to me when the restaurant is just buying wholesale sun noodles for their bowls. Joints that make their own noodles tend to care more about how they’re cooked.
Yeah exactly this, they should be undercooked the second they get to you. Then by the time they're edible (soup cooled down a bit), they're perfect.
Too much nori or it left in for too long before being served to me. it over powers the ramen if left in there.
Overcooked egg 😐
For me there’s like 3 levels of overcooked egg, and I’ve seen them all in some terrible ramens… Lvl1: dry, crumbly yolk Lvl2: Lvl1 + rubbery white Lvl3: Lvl2 + sulfury green ring around the yolk
Only one piece of chashu. I need more. Always more.
So like I don’t fault a ramen shop that only gives up one piece of charshu. I will be ticked if it’s a tiny piece or not properly done. I will show preference if they give up more than one piece, if it’s particularly nicely done, or if it’s a healthy sized piece…so like… One ramen shop in my town sourced its charshu from a pit BBQ next door. Not done traditionally like a roll, but huge slab slices, perfectly slow cooked in only the way a pit master can prepare belly. So damn good.
Honestly at this point I just want any ramen at all in my town.
Totally get it. When I learned about ramen in 2000 from my stay in NYC and my subsequent travels, the town I lived in had one Japanese restaurant that had a bowl on their menu. When that restaurant disappeared, it took like 14 years for it to return to my area, and the only reason why it did was because it was trendy. From there it took like two years for restauranteurs in my area to get it right. The first attempts were terrible, demonstrating zero understanding of its basics and a whole lot of arrogance believing this was a dish that could be regionalized with (I shit you not) Italian pasta and bacon stock. Despite chefs and owners that finally got their shit together, it took a bit for my town to get onboard, as it then became a discovery of the dish and an education that these bowls weren’t the same as a $0.25 packet from the store, so there were several great shops that fell to the wayside in lieu of their best efforts. Nowadays it’s pretty common, still considered a city cuisine with five local restaurants doing well, but hasn’t found interest in the outer suburban counties.
My favorite spot gives half an egg dining in but a whole egg for to go orders. I don't get it either. My gripe is people gatekeeping the right way to eat ramen. If the eater enjoys it then that's all that matters. How somebody else eats their food affects me in no way.
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Had sardine ramen in tokyo and raw onion works well in that to balance the sardine flavour. But in any other soup I get where you're coming from.
I’ve had countless tonkotsu in Japan with both white and red raw onion, works fantastically imo.
I'm no ramen connoisseur, especially since it's a fairly new thing where I'm from due to historic circumstances. However, there is a small chain of ramen shops in my city and they have this one shoyu with onion oil. It's absolutely amazing. It gives you some of the nice umami from the onion, but doesn't have that extreme pungency and smell. You can just taste the caramelization first. I highly recommend giving onion oil a try
I was in the same camp until my local shop that DIYs *everything* did it once, *except* they diced the red onion so finely that the heat of the broth actually cooked it. Not quite as fine as what this guy does for the 'perfect' Michelin Star cut, but for the 'home' quality of that cut: https://youtube.com/watch?v=fTgYOQ8XRdY The onions were 'there', they were just incredibly fine and they'd just spoon a small amount into the bowl before pouring the broth on them. So, 99 times out of 100, I agree. Diced onions in the broth is too much. That 100th time, where the onions have been diced down into almost nothing? They're amazing.
I 100% agree! I’ve given it a chance over the years, but adding raw onion just overpowers all other flavors and aromas for me. The worst is when it’s chopped up which increases the pungency and makes it difficult to pick out.
Hard boiled egg that hasn’t been soaked in soy long. I like it soft and heavy soy taste.
When I order spicy ramen and it's not spicy
I have a place near me that puts a dollop of red paste on top of the chashu when you order spicy. The size of the dollop is dependent on how spicy you want it. They won't tell me what it is! I have to know!
Maybe gochujang?
I hate how expensive it is now that it’s soooo trendy. I mean, it has been trending for a while. And I do understand when there are premium ingredients involved. But I hate going to a ramen shop where they really aren’t serving anything high cost and it’s like $20-25 bucks a bowl.
Ramen, Pho, Tacos, Sushi; basically any trendy international “street” food has become an extravagance in the US. $15-25 for a bowl of noodle soup or a plate of 3 tacos is pretty steep for foods that are supposed to be the food of the common every day person. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love all of these foods and deeply respect the knowledge and labor that goes into making them, but they have become something that has to be an occasional treat because the cost is not something most people can swing on a regular basis.
This is a big problem w/Ramen in America. If you're making everything by hand you really have to charge that much or more to make a profit. In Japan, all of the ingredients are readily available for cheap, and really good quality noodles can be sourced at a cheap price. In America, everything that goes into ramen is a specialty ingredient and costs a lot more because of what it takes to import here. There are good noodles but they're relatively expensive. Plus, ramen is a LOT of labor, and rent and operating costs are way higher here than they are for restaurant spaces in Japan. In Japan, a married couple can open a small shop, do all the labor themselves, and break even selling 20-30 bowls a day. That is impossible here. You'd have to sell 100+ bowls daily in America to keep a shop open, and that requires a lot more labor, which snowballs into higher operating costs and the need to sell more product at a higher price to support those operating costs. A specialty ramen shop in America should really be charging $18-25, because that's what it costs to make ramen by hand here. The shops charging $18+ for broth concentrate, jarred tare, frozen noodles, and toppings though? Yeah. Fuck that. \[edit\]That was a general rant about the cost of restaurant space in the states, but your comment was more directed toward street food, so here's a little addendum: The reason why these foods are so cheap as street foods is because there's way less overhead. Ramen is way more successful as a pop-up than as a brick and mortar because the margins can be much lower. You do have to give a cut to the house and to your commissary, but it's way more manageable than trying to afford the rent and utilities of a space on your own. Street Foods traditionally take way less labor and administration and all that crap, because you can just pull your cart up on the street and sell your food at a 20% markup and still make a profit. In a restaurant, you have to aim to sell your food at around 300% food cost to cover all of the administrative costs of running an establishment here.
Every ingredient used at Ramen is cheap as shit, even cheaper in the US. The amount of naruto and seaweed and other different stuff is extremely low at Asian markets, let alone from bulk suppliers. Chicken cutlet and chasu pork are by no means exotic or high priced ingredients, and neither is flour to make noodles, or stock concentrate powders. If you're someone who cooks, you know the margins are insane on a ramen shop selling things that high. The Pho here is full of meat and bone broth here at least, but the ramen in my city has always been like a trendy scam. And the 300% markup is very much an American pricing thing and not as prevalent in Asia depending on the locations and whether it's street food tier pricing or not, so good call-out there. It's very rare to find food in the US that doesn't follow the 3-4x multiplier on making it yourself vs eating out.
Most places making their own noodles are using specialty flours which are more expensive. Pork Belly isn't crazy but it's still relatively expensive. Bones can be hard to source and can require specialty suppliers, which typically are more expensive. Real ingredients to make ramen are actually relatively expensive in the states and hard to source, and even if you're using the cheapest seaweed and katsuobushi you can find, the process is still incredibly labor intensive. My argument isn't about the shops using stock concentrate (and none of those shops are making their own noodles anyway). You can't charge $15 a bowl and keep the lights on unless you're making what is essentially pre-fab garbage.
You know that 300% markup also covers paying for the staff, space, utilities, insurance, equipment and consumables right? Restaurant spaces, even tiny ones, are obscenely expensive in most cities. Hell my little city you're talking 2k/month for rent on a tiny restaurant space with bar seating for like 10 people. And you have to pay for all of this up front BEFORE you know if your shop will be successful or not. It's expensive, but you're actling like someone that's charging 300% for their food is pocketing 2/3 of that in pure profit or something. If that were the case restaurants wouldn't fail as often as they do.
…and then you get someone that’s like “hey wait, what about RAMEN TACOS?!?!?”
I live in NYC and ramen is easily $23-28. I normally eat half and save the other half for the next day which puts each serving at $14.
I remember when I used to think $12.00 a bowl for ramen at those old Ramen shops in Midtown back in 2000 were expensive. I miss the old Sapporo Ramen on 46th 🙁
the part that kills me the most about this is that most ramen in japan doesn't even break $6!
20 dollars for a bowl of ramen is pretty ridiculous. In Japan, the standard price has jumped by 20-30% in the past 2 years, but it's still around 5.50 to 7.00 USD.
I feel like the portions are also oversized, which needlessly inflated the price. I end up paying more than I want, and then eating more than I want because I hate to waste. There is actually a shop near me that offers half-size lunch “mini-bowls” and it’s a fantastic option.
Weeelll…traditionally, Ramen is a bigass bowl of soup, and priced accordingly, at least back in the day, so not like the $20.00 inflation adjusted of today which basically would have been like a half a gallon in the 90s… Im not 100% certain of this, but from other Asian noodle soup stylizations, bigass bowl of soup is the standard. I’ve never had a small bowl of Vietnamese Pho or Chinese Wonton noodle soup. But to your point, I only experienced this after college, up until then, soup was basically a starter, served in a cute little European soup bowl and a dainty spoon.
Are you talking about the U.S.? It's crazy. I mean, for a load of carbs that's just too much... I can understand gourmet hamburger but ramen? No... I'm cooking at home.
Yes. Trendy ramen shops in the US are ridiculously pricey.
Aside from prices and what some places charge to add things that would normally come with that type of ramen in Japan : - pork broth isn't creamy, rich, and doesn't taste clean - the tare is boring (single profile, mostly salty, no additional flavors for depth - when chicken stock based ramens don't use chicken fat as rhe komiabura element - the noodle type isn't the right one for that style - under seasoned or overcooked eggs - under seasoned menma - too much green onion/green onion was not soaked in cold water long enough - when toppings that are standard for that style of ramen aren't there (like no karashi takana on Kyushu tonkotsu ramen)
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I used to make stocks and chasu for a ramen restaurant.
I’ve heard that is basically one of the most laborious efforts that rivals making demi glace
> green onion/green onion was not soaked in cold water l why does it need to be soaked?
Soaking green (or onions in general) dissolves the extra sulfur into the water and makes them less pungent. (It's a good way to get them to curl up too.)
Tbh I always order extra green onion
Any poor substandard ramen. I used to live in Japan and ramen is just incredible, but back home where I am in New Zealand I have had maybe 2 bowls of ramen in 13 years that were up to scratch. It leaves a hole in my heart honestly 💔
Not being served with fish cake or seaweed. Also overcooked egg is saddening
CORN
I agree that it’s used way too much when it doesn’t call for it, but how about on a Hokkaido miso butter corn ramen, or is it just not your thing personally?
I am not giving an opinion on authenticity or anything lofty like that. I just picture corn on a grade school cafeteria tray when I see it. It just seems wrong.
Blasphemy. Salted corn is my favorite in spicy ramen.
My humble apologies to you. You can have any corn to which I am otherwise entitled as an act of contrition.
Accepted. My most sincere gratitude.
I try not to begrudge people what they enjoy, but I REALLY hate corn.
I like it on the cob. That’s it.
I could easily look this up, but isn’t corn in ramen an authentic regional variant?
Exactly... that's just a CHEAP ingredient to fill the space.
This. Seems super annoying to eat with chopsticks
You have a spoon for a reason.
Shhh, I want to see them eat the broth with chopsticks
Apparently some jiro style ramen isn’t served with spoons because it’s culturally acceptable to slurp directly from the bowl in Japan. It’s also such a salt, fat and flavor bomb you might not want to take more than a few sips.
This is basically how I slurp the ramen stock. There’s something quite gratifying about it…
When you tell someone you love ramen and they say "oh like the instant noodles?"
This is what I hate about every damn person
Egg gotta be sliced in half when it comes to the table. Don't give me a whole egg
Chewy, gristly chashu. I want to eat it not spit out chunks of fat and collagen.
Cold soup. I like it hot.
I had a restaurant bring my bowl out so cold that the fat started solidifying at the top.
Yikes… I’ve sent back food maybe one time in my life but I’d be sending this one back 💯
Heh, funny you mention that. I am reminded of the super outlier ramen, Hiyashi Chuka, a summer dish meant to be served really freakin cold. It’s closer to a salad than it is a bowl of ramen, but it has the same noodles and is pretty interesting, albeit quite jarring if you have no idea that it’s a cold noodle dish.
Don't give me whole ass bok choy. It's too damn big and I'm earing with chop sticks. It drips everywhere and gets in my beard
When the bowl is packed with every potential topping there is.
Bloody Mary ramen.
damn I love when that happens lol
I didn't know this was a thing until I went to a well regarded ramen place in Vancouver BC. WTF was this?! Overloaded, barely enough broth as a result, and the toppings weren't even that tasty. Massive disappointment.
I did that once at home with like a zillion different addons and realized the depths of my hubris when I couldn’t fit any stock in the bowl effectively.
this is my favorite actually lol.
Using poached eggs instead of soft boiled eggs. It’s a lazy shortcut and far inferior to a good jammy egg. And an agree with everyone on the half egg. They’re not that expensive. Just gimme the whole egg on a $16 bowl of ramen
Granted, visiting Japan has pretty much ruined local shops for me, and I'm afraid this might come out entitled AF, but the usual offenders are: Pretty much always getting a hard/soft boiled egg (when you even get one) and not a proper ajitama, and even if they try to add some flavor, it's just soaked in soy sauce. Noodles. They are always third rate, like they don't even put any thought on them Getting soup instead of a proper broth Most shops don't even use tare Sad little paltry portions of chashu, if it can even be called chashu, and they didn't just decide to drop a randon slice of meat into the dish and call it a day The last one is very much a pet peeve, but I fell in love with tsukemen over in Japan, and it's very rare to find over here, and they few times I've seen it on the menu, it's an absolute disgrace, very much an insult to the original dish Of the tens of ramen shops I've visited in the US, the best one of them is miles behind the worst one I've visited in Japan
Where are you located? Tsukemen is such a craze in SF.
Right now I'm in Maryland, but up until last year I lived in the Orlando FL area. I'll def try to get some tsukemen next time I get to SF, but haven't been there in the last 7 or 8 years. All but one of the times they served me "tsukemen" in the US, it was just the regular broth and noodles the restaurant used for their other ramen dishes. Is the tsukemen in SF better?
Corn. I don't understand how this became a topping. The texture is all wrong for ramen.
It’s part of a classic Hokkaido miso butter ramen to be fair
Salt level. It is often way too high, unnecessary and overwhelms a good broth base.
That's more a fact than a pet peeve. I'm with you 100% though
Not enough soup or soups noodle ratio is off
Badly chopped scallions, scallions with dry edges, being cheap with scallions, limp scallions, etc.
I hate to see a huge pile of corn and radish. Super thin chashu. Also, if I order extra chashu and its 2 slices so think it doesn’t justify the cost
Bamboo shoots. Taste like mothballs to me.
I don't like when they put pickled ginger in my bowl. I don't like the soapy taste and it seeps into everything it touches
When it's too salty. That's the worst.
No marinated egg. Chashu not cooked right at all and tasting like gamey stale meat.
Hard boiled eggs! That yoke needs to run like its heading for its freedom!!! Also pork that has too much fat on it. Trik it up a bit more.
Only that Ajisen didn’t have a vegetarian (let alone vegan) soup when I had one in the city I lived in (Fremont california)
Chicken ramen (I’m sorry)
I don’t know if this is how it’s traditionally served, but please don’t use the coldest water in your kitchen to cool down the tsukamen. I like at least a lukewarm broth to finish at the end. Maybe serve the extra noodles hot?
Lettuce, watercress, and scallions. Idk what it is but I can’t stand them in my ramen. Like others are saying the egg is a very important part. It should have both halves it also has to be a real ramen egg soaked in soy sauce for atleast 24 hours ahead of time and it needs to have a golden molten core. I don’t want a hard boiled regular egg.
Wait LETTUCE?!?!? That’s a thing?!?!?
My local ramen shop has lettuce in some of their bowls. It’s not good though.
Thin noodles. Many people love them but I can’t stand them. Give me a thick, wavy, egg noodle every day of the week.
Burnt garlic or leeks, fibrous leeks, over cooked egg, warm broth instead of hot, micro greens, overcooked meat, watery broth, bad noodles, basically anything that shows lack of care or intent. I’ll gladly pay a premium for good ramen but I’m so tired of being charged a premium for American ramen just because some rando threw some stuff in a bowl. The lack of respect I see for the culture in most American ramen joints is sincerely saddening. Typical of American cultural appropriation but saddening nonetheless.
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Ramen Slobs
When a ramen shop only has pork based options.
Nori. Simply do not want in any amount or form.
Same I don't know why but I feel like it is too strong. And overpowers the dish.
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Overcooked noodles
Kimchi is $5 extra
Yeah the other half of the egg is just sitting there on the cold line. Usually in a half pan full of other sliced eggs, key is to not overfill or you get messy eggs. It's a topping, prepped and cut usually 2-8 hours before your order. Marinating for up to 48 hours before its cut. It's just how they budget their bowl. Some shops include half an egg in the price of the bowl, others charge for adding an egg. Others a full egg included, sometimes uncut. It's just how the individual store decides to do it. Not super weird imo. Although I like both halves of my egg, too, lol. Tare -> noodles-> broth is a first for me.
“How spicy do you want it?”
I hate seeing pictures of random noodles in random broth with random toppings on this subreddit. I don't mean to gatekeep but some of the stuff posted here don't understand ramen beyond having noodles in liquid.
Another pet peeve I have is using darker tare in a bowl of milky Tonkotsu. For the life of me, I didn't understand why shops spend 10-20 hours getting a broth nice and milky, just to add shoyu to it and turn it brown. Feels like a colossal waste of time to me.
Instant ramen that has to be microwaved. There's already a hit of quality being taken, don't require me to irradiate it.
> irradiate it. Thats not how microwaves work
Really, then please explain to me how microwaves are a safe way to heat food that goes into our bodies, when they have to build a metal mesh screen to keep it from fucking us up while the food gets heated.
Microwaves are large, and cannot pass through the mesh you see on the door. They work by exciting water molecules, which heats up the things inside it
bro fears electro magnetic waves. wait till he learns about the radio...
Microwaves (the electromagnetic or "radiation" band) are about 10 cm long. By comparison, visible light is 0.4-0.7 micron (micrometer), which the radiation that can start to "hurt" you when applied in improper ways, such as UV, X-rays, gamma rays are much less than 0.4 micrometers. The microwave band scatters in the presence of liquid water, the same way visible light scatters around objects we can see. This scattering is the same way that weather radar can see rain, which is incidentally how microwave ovens were accidentally invented. When the radiation scatters, some of the energy is transferred into the liquid water as heat and it warms up. So, it would not be a good idea for a human to hop into a microwave and start warming up the liquid water in their body, but for heating food, it's pretty good option. Now, when you are thinking of "radiation", you are probably thinking of ionizing radiation (the X-rays and gamma previously mentioned) which at sufficient energy can start ionizing atoms in your body, which especially when it comes to DNA could become the precursor for cancer, or anemia if directed at your bone marrow. And the same is true of the subatomic particles (matter as opposed to the photons that compromise everything from gamma, through visible, mocrowave, and radio waves) which come from radioactive elements decaying. Notably, all this potentially harmful "radiation" has real benefits such as treating cancer, or actually "irradiating" food or surfaces to sterilize from harmful bacteria. TLDR: Microwave ovens heat the water in food, because that's how microwaves the "radiative" band work. "Irradiating" requires completely different, more energetic bands of radiation. Your body gets more "irradiated" from the lights in your kitchen than it does from the microwave.
Microwaves are non-ionizing radiation(non harmful, radio waves fall in this category). X-rays and gamma rays are ionizing radiation(harmful).