The Curry Shop's Ramen

Miko-chan, breaking news

…What, nya.

Onii-chan went to a curry place… and got ramen

Disqualified.

Nothing even started yet! (ﾟ∀ﾟ)

A curry house serving ramen is a rules violation, nya. This demands a formal review.

OK but hear me out. Gotoken — founded 1879. 146 years of continuous operation. Their curry is legendary in Hokkaido

…146 years. Fine. The history earns consideration, nya.

…But provisional ruling: heresy. Overturn it with skill or go home.

Check out what Onii-chan brought back

“GOTO-MEN.” Available February 14 through April 16, dinner only. Gotoken’s first ever attempt at ramen in 146 years of business

And the menu literally says: “Fusing classical French technique with modern Japanese cuisine”

…! French technique? In a ramen bowl?

…Interesting. Challenge accepted, nya.

So here’s where it gets wild. The soup base isn’t tonkotsu, isn’t shoyu, isn’t even dashi

It’s bouillon. The exact same bouillon Gotoken’s been making for 146 years — chicken, vegetables, herbs, simmered in a giant kettle for 6+ hours

…Hold on, nya.

Huh? (ﾟ∀ﾟ)

Bouillon simmers low and slow, never cloudied, pulling only clean umami, nya. Completely different method from a ramen shop’s chicken-bone stock.

AND they layer Hakodate ma-kombu and local King Shiitake mushrooms on top of that! (≧∇≦)

…!

Bouillon brings inosinic acid. Kombu brings glutamic acid. Shiitake brings guanylic acid.

English please?

The three pillars of umami, nya. Each one hits hard alone. Stack all three and the flavor doesn’t add up — it multiplies. Synergistic effect. You could build a wall of taste without touching the salt shaker.

And that’s exactly what they did — total sodium per bowl is just 2 grams. Your average ramen runs 6 to 8

No salt crutch, nya. Pure umami carrying the entire flavor profile.

…This is a bare-knuckle boxer stepping into the ring, nya. No weapons. No hiding.

Then it arrived

…The broth is transparent, nya. You can see the bottom.

Onii-chan’s first words: “This doesn’t taste like ramen.”

…Bad!?

Opposite. It tasted like walking into a French restaurant. Elegant, layered, never heavy. You swallow and the flavor just keeps going

Now the NOODLES (≧∇≦) Thick, made from Hokkaido wheat by a local Hakodate noodle maker called Hinode Seimen

Pick them up and they’re heavy. Like, weirdly heavy. Then you bite and… resistance. Your teeth push in and the noodle pushes BACK

“Chewy” doesn’t cut it. Think fresh mochi — that springy, dense, almost-alive bounce. Against such a delicate broth you’d expect them to overpower it, but they don’t. They absorb the soup and become part of it

…Not a noodle that yields. A noodle that meets the broth as an equal, nya.

Then the chashu — roast pork. Enormous. Stretches edge to edge across the bowl

…Seared surface, but pale underneath, nya. No soy sauce braising.

Onii-chan touched it with his chopsticks and… it just… fell apart

…!

Melt-in-your-mouth all the way through. The fibers dissolve and umami floods out in slow waves. It tasted like someone spent a very, very long time being very, very careful. Onii-chan stopped talking for a while

…Salt-seasoned, low-temperature, long-duration, nya. French braisage. No soy because soy would cloud the broth.

…Every component in this bowl protects the broth’s clarity, nya. This isn’t a collection of toppings. It’s a team.

Miko-chan. See that dark green thing standing up in the photo? Looks like nori

…It IS nori, nya.

It’s called Bistro Kombu. Young Hakodate kelp, blanched and pressed into sheets. Halfway between seaweed and kombu — something entirely its own

At first it stands straight up out of the soup like a little flag. Then as you eat, it slowly sinks, unfurls, and wraps itself around the noodles

…So the kombu umami dissolves into the broth as you go, nya? The flavor profile shifts while you’re eating?

Yep! Beautiful to watch AND the taste keeps evolving

…A single bowl with a three-act structure, nya. Beginning, development, climax — built into the timeline of eating.

…

I lose, nya.

WAIT WHAT?! (ﾟ∀ﾟ)

I retract the heresy ruling. The chashu, the noodles, the bistro kombu — every piece exists to serve the broth. The broth is the star. Everything else is the supporting cast.

…Not heresy. Orthodox, nya.

Miko-chan. Wanna know how a curry restaurant made a ramen this good?

…They didn’t make it with curry skills, nya.

They made it with bouillon skills. For Gotoken, bouillon isn’t a curry ingredient. It’s the core craft they’ve been sharpening for 146 years.

Think about it: curry = bouillon + spices. Ramen = bouillon + noodles. Same engine, different car

…Ramen’s actually harder, nya. Spices can cover flaws. A clear broth hides nothing.

Y’know what Onii-chan said after his first sip? “It tastes like their curry.”

…Same taste, nya?

Not the curry FLAVOR. The flavor underneath the curry. The bouillon that’s been hiding behind spices all along. He’d eaten their curry a dozen times and never noticed it was there

…A plain omelet, nya.

Huh? (ﾟ∀ﾟ)

Want to see how good a chef really is? Order the simplest thing on the menu. Fewer ingredients means nowhere to hide, nya.

…GOTO-MEN is a plain omelet 146 years in the making, nya.

They stripped off every last spice and said, “This is what we’ve actually been doing all along”

…A curry house didn’t make ramen

…A bouillon house took off its mask, nya.

Judge Miko — final verdict?

…

Pass. No objections. Walked in under the heresy flag and beat us with textbook orthodoxy, nya. …146 years of craft is the real deal.

…So how was the curry?

He didn’t have any. Too full (〃´∪｀〃)

…Drove 10 hours to the arena, skipped the main event, went home, nya.

But now he knows what the bouillon tastes like! Next time he eats their curry, he’ll hear the bouillon laughing behind the spices

…April 16th is the deadline, nya.

53 days. …Rematch