Here is a quick overview and guide for our “Build Your Own” approach. Additional links will be provided for each individual item to satisfy any food connoisseur’s quest for deeper knowledge.
Vegan options shown in GREEN.
BROTH
Also known as dashi in Japanese cooking. This is the fundamental building block behind all Japanese cuisine, and ramen is no exception. Since ramen is about 60% broth, picking the right one for one’s palette is very important.
Aromatic
This is our vegetable broth. It is made fresh daily with 3 or 4 different spices and a few Onion Brûlée (and some seasonal vegetables depending the spice used). The goal for aromatic broth is to elevate the accompanying flavor broth, and not to overpower whether the choice was chicken, pork or fish.
Having 100% aromatic broth provide an adventure in its own as it accentuates the soup base instead, making the nuances of the base more prominent to one’s palate.
Tonkotsu
Pork broth made from pork thigh bones (its namesake), pig feet, and a pig head. The broth is cooked over 2 days at a simmer to ensure we can extract all the mineral goodness from the bones and then strained. Typically this enjoyed equal part with the aromatic broth for a more balanced flavor approach.
100% tonkotsu is great for any pork lovers. Without the additional spice to neutralize the porkiness, the soup will be fatty, rich and even a bit gamey.
Paitan
Chicken broth made from a combination of our favorite garden variety of chicken: free-ranged, roasters, game hens, etc. This broth takes nearly 3 days to finish as we found it best to slowly extract their delicate flavor.
100% paitan is essentially the same broth for our Chicken Paitan from our staple menu.
Awase
Awase means combine in Japanese and our Awase dashi is the staple dashi among Japanese cuisine – a combination of the Konbu (kelp) and Katsuobushi (Bonito). This age old combination will surely remind anyone of the morning sea breeze.
100% awase would turn the broth into a fish stock, great choice for anyone favors more sea flavors.
SOUP BASE
This is known as tare in Japanese cooking. Unlike how a base is used in most western inspired cooking, Japanese base is often made separately and mixed in at last minute of the dish. By doing so, it will create an explosion of flavor.
Shoyu
Shoyu is soy sauce, but the shoyu tare for ramen is a bit more complex than the store bought variety. 4 types of soy sauce were used to create our tare – young, preserved, cold pressed, and roasted. These then combined with mushroom extracts we separated ourselves to create a tare that’s not only tasty, but also vegan friendly.
Contains mushroom.
Shio
Shio means salt in Japanese. It’s the bolder choice among the two basic (shoyu & shio) ramen flavors. It’s salty and unapologetic reminiscing of the sea.
Contains shellfish.
Combo
Combine the shoyu and shio tare and you will have our combo tare. This is much closer to a traditional ramen base as it highlights the shoyu flavors with extra umami from the shio base.
Contains mushroom & shellfish.
Miso
Miso ramen is popular across Japan, especially throughout the Sapporo prefecture where soy beans are abundant. Our miso tare is rather unique from its oversea cousins by being Vegan. No mushroom, no fish, no shellfish, just time and control of few selected vegetables at the right temperature to accentuate miso’s natural taste.
NOODLES/STYLES
This is the starch choice for the BYO. You can choose not only what type of noodles you prefer, but also the style the BYO is presented.
Regular
This is our standard noodle type. Thick and cooked to a firm finish.
Thin
Not available currently / Coming soon
Shirataki
Yam noodle, gluten free. Roughly 3Kcal / 0 Carb per serving
Novelty
Not available currently / Coming soon
Styles – Tsukemen
Have the noodles on the side and dip into a broth that’s 50% in volume of the normal ramen. Since there are less broth than normal, the flavor will be much more intense. Upgrade the broth to 100% tonkotsu or paitan for “kotteri” version.
Styles – Donburi
Rice option. Have everything a BYO offers but over rice instead. The broth will be reduced with the soup base to create a sauce to pour over the rice.
A typical ramen house offers different ramen finishing textures. Though these options are not on the menu, we do accommodate to these requests made by our ramen enthusiasts.
TOPPINGS
Kakuni
Braised pork belly, traditionally served in a cube shape. We serve such a cube thinly sliced.
Chashu
This is the typical protein choice served on most ramen. We chose tenderloin over the more commonly used pork shoulder for a better mouthfeel. This is cooked to a “medium” temperature.
Menchi-Katsu
Also known as minchi-katsu on the western side of Japan. This is a minced pork cutlet, 3 stage battered, then deep fried. Great addition for the heartier broth choices.
Chicken
Chicken thigh meat, lightly coated in corn starch, then poached. Flavored with salt and pepper. Alternatively, Chicken Confit can be enjoyed instead upon availability.
Ajitama
Flavored soft boiled egg, served cold traditionally.
Naruto
Naruto (rolled) style fish cake
Ebi Tempura
Stretched shrimp, tempura fried
Tofu
Vegetable protein made from soy beans
Moyashi
Mung Bean Sprouts
Corn
Sweet Corn
Menma
Bamboo shoots
Broccolini
Broccoli & Gai-lan hybrid
Kikurage
Woodear mushroom
Wakegi
Roasted Spring Onion bulbs
Shiitake
Shiitake mushroom
Wakame
Seaweed / Nori – Roasted Seaweed available as alternative