New Touch Kitakata Ramen ニュータッチ喜多方ラーメン

It’s no secret that Kitakata style ramen are one of my favorite ramen styles. I have even been to the city of Kitakata to eat ramen at the source in Kitakata at Bannai Shokudo and Umeya. Since really good Kitakata style ramen shops aren’t plentiful, I’m always looking for ways to bring the experience into my own 4 walls. This Kitakata instant ramen bowl by Yamadai from their “New Touch” ramen series seems to be a promising candidate for this.

For full disclosure, I received this bowl for free from Instantramenshop.com for testing purposes as part of the 24 local ramen set by Yamadai. You can also get only this bowl if you are a fan of Kitakata shoyu ramen right here.

Kitakata instant ramen content — *The full content of the Yamadai Kitakata Ramen bowl.*

Preparation

Open lid half and take out all sachets.
Open all sachets with freeze dried stuff and pour them back into the bowl.
Add boiling water up to the line in the bowl and place liquid soup concentrate on top of the hot bowl.
Wait 5 minutes, then open the bowl and pour soup concentrate in.
Stir vigorously and then enjoy your Kitakata style instant ramen!

*Kitakata ramen noodle pull. Note the light wave of the noodles.*

Review

It’s hard to really put my finger on it, but the smell that fills the air from the hot soup definitely evokes some faint memories of Bannai Shokudo in Kitakata. A first slurp confirms that this bowl definitely goes into the right direction, even though of course it can’t really compare to a fresh bowl of ramen. Nonetheless, for an instant version, the taste of the soup is surprisingly on point. The description on the website of Yamadai says that they are using soy sauce from Kitakata to season this bowl. Maybe that explains the familiar taste and aroma?

*Making the perfect bite with some chashu among the noodles.*

But what’s even better is that the noodles are also not far off. They have the typical slightly curly look with a good bite. When slurping, the curly flat shape gives them a lot of surface area for soup to attach to, so you always get a good amount of soup aroma with every slurp. The chashu is nothing special, but having three slices is definitely nicer than having one bigger chunk, as is often the case with these instant bowls.

To be fair, I’m not the most objective person to judge this bowl. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, but there’s also probably a lot of nostalgia connected to it for me. It’s definitely one of the better instant ramen bowls out there and gets an easy recommendation from me. Thanks again to Instantramenshop.com for providing this bowl and many more to me.