If you search for a ramen kit in Britain you will find three quite different things wearing the same name. It is worth knowing which one you are looking at before you spend anything, so here is the honest guide, from someone who makes one of them.
The three kinds
The sachet kit. Dried noodles, a soup base in a packet, sometimes a sachet of oil, on a supermarket shelf for a few pounds. It keeps for a year and it is a fair Tuesday-night noodle soup. It is not a ramen, because the broth has never been near a bone or a bowl of kombu, and the noodles are dried.
The frozen kit. A real broth, cooked properly and frozen, with noodles and toppings frozen alongside. This is a big step up. The trade is that everything has to thaw, which takes time and planning, and freezing is not kind to a fresh noodle or a soft egg.
The chilled kit. A real broth, cooked and then kept cold rather than frozen, with fresh noodles and toppings, delivered in an insulated box. It has a use-by date measured in days, not months, because nothing in it has been preserved. This is the one that eats most like a restaurant bowl, and it is the one we make.
What to look for, whichever kind you buy
Real broth. If the ingredients list starts with water and a powder, keep walking. A proper broth lists bones or kombu and the things that went in the pot.
The seasoning. Ramen is seasoned with tare, added to the bowl, not salted in the pot. A kit that has thought about this will tell you what its tare is. Ours is a salt tare under the tonkotsu, a smoked chicken garum under the chicken, two misos under the tofu.
An aroma oil. Separate, so it can go into the warm bowl first and the broth can be poured over it. If there is no oil, the bowl will taste flat, however good the broth.
Fresh noodles. Springy, alkaline, cooked in a minute or two. Dried noodles are a compromise. Instant ones are not ramen.
A protein and the garnishes. Chashu that has been braised, not sliced deli meat. Spring onion, bamboo, wood ear. If a marinated egg is not in the box, it should be easy to add.
Allergens and ingredients, in the open. Every one of them, on the page you buy from, not in a leaflet after the fact. This is the law and it is also just decent.
How it stays cold. For a chilled kit, ask what the box is made of, how long it holds temperature, and what happens to it afterwards. We have written every layer of ours up, including the bits we have not solved yet.
A method that does not guess. Three or four numbered steps, a cooking time that is true, and no "about". Ours is 10 minutes, and we timed it.
What we make
Every bowl is chef-made, so everything is tasted and checked by the chef before it goes out. We keep our recipes live, which means they can be tweaked and updated as we go, and with food like this they have to be: bones change, reductions change, the seasons change. Staying on top of that is how we make sure the right bowl reaches you every time.
Four bowls, chilled, made in our kitchen: a Proper Tonkotsu, a Roast Chicken, a Smoked Tofu and Spiced Miso, and a special that changes with the seasons. Every kit is two full portions for £24, with the broth cooked and seasoned, the oil, fresh noodles, the protein and the garnishes, and a card that gets you from box to bowl in 10 minutes. They are here. Order by Sunday 8pm. Delivered Thursday or Friday.
