Chef Ryuji's Best Buys of 2025: 10 Items Taste-Tested, From Bulk Bō Ramen to Curry Roux

First up is the bulk version of Marutai's bō ramen (stick ramen), which comes without soup packets. As Ryuji remembers it, the price is in the 600-yen range for 1kg. Since a serving of Marutai ramen is about 70–80g, that works out to roughly 45–50 yen per serving. The main reason for recommending it is the low price, and Ryuji says they use these noodles in their own copycat ramen recipes as well. Apparently it's available on Amazon as well as at Gyomu Super.

With these noodles, Ryuji made "Kyomu Ramen" (nothingness ramen), which they call "the world's simplest soy sauce soup." Into hot water go soy sauce, half a teaspoon of Hondashi, 7 shakes of Ajinomoto, 3 shakes of pepper, and 4 shakes of garlic powder, plus about 1 tablespoon of oil. Lard is best if you have it; otherwise rice bran oil is fine. Once it boils, just add the noodles and cook for about 3 minutes. Ryuji notes that combining it with chicken bone stock and the like would make it tastier, but positions this as the cheapest version, estimating it at about 60 yen a bowl even with the seasonings. The staff who tried it kept saying, "The noodles are great."

The second item is the fresh pasta "Karahigu-men." According to Ryuji, in 2025 it was sold only at My Basket, but it seems it's now also available at AEON stores in the Kanto region.

The advantage Ryuji highlights is the short cooking time. Regular pasta takes about 5 minutes even for thin varieties, and longer for thick ones. Karahigu-men is about 1.8–1.9mm thick, yet it cooks in 2 minutes, and you don't even need salt in the water. Just boil it and toss it with seasonings, and you get chewy, springy noodles.

The demonstration was ochazuke pasta: simply mix the cooked noodles with store-bought ochazuke seasoning, butter, and a little soy sauce. It's delicious in ordinary pasta dishes too, but Ryuji says Japanese-style flavors work surprisingly well. The staff responded, "You could serve this in a restaurant" and "I want to eat a bucket of this."

Ryuji also mentioned that an acquaintance told them, "Champon made with these noodles is really delicious." Champon noodles are sold in Kyushu, but they're hard to find where Ryuji lives, so this works as a substitute. Ryuji likes it so much that they even urged viewers to ask their local supermarkets to stock Karahigu-men.

The third item is "Fukkurinko," a rice from Hokkaido. In Ryuji's assessment, other rice varieties may be better suited for things like takikomi gohan (mixed rice), but Fukkurinko is a rice that's delicious eaten plain. Saying you can't understand it without tasting it, Ryuji cooked some on the spot. Normally Ryuji soaks the rice for 30 minutes and then uses the quick-cook setting, but this time they used the regular setting. Later in the video, Ryuji also said it's best to soak the rice in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes before cooking.

The staff who ate the freshly cooked rice praised its sweetness, aroma, and texture. At this point, umeboshi made by an acquaintance, "Kiyomi-san," was introduced as a "secret best buy." It costs 540 yen and can't be bought online. Ryuji explained that it's additive-free and, pairing it with the rice, remarked, "This is what real umeboshi is like."

While the rice was cooking, Ryuji introduced the "ENRO," a compact electric pizza oven. It was received as part of a sponsorship, but Ryuji says it makes things like frozen pizza taste fantastic.

The demonstration used sausages. Ryuji has long maintained that sausages taste best cooked in an oven, and recalled that the oven should have come out on top in their earlier "Sausage Cooking Method Championship" as well. For grilling meat, the steak mode is the way to go.

Ryuji also gave specific reasons for the temperature setting. The ENRO can reach 450°C, but that's too intense and leaves the inside undercooked. Ryuji considers around 300°C ideal. The reasoning is that the high heat cooks the outside quickly, making the skin crisp, while the moisture inside stays put for a juicy result, something Ryuji stressed can't be done in a frying pan. Cooking takes about 5–6 minutes, and the browning happens in an instant. The staff who tasted them reacted to the crisp skin and the way the juices were locked in, with one asking, "Isn't the ENRO kind of amazing?" And of course, it can also bake pizza, its intended purpose.

The miso chosen for the seasonings category is "Yamabuki," a white Shinshu miso (light flavor, medium-sweet). Ryuji says they've been using it since around the start of the year. It's available at supermarkets but is a bit pricey. Even so, Ryuji described it as dramatically raising the quality of a dish.

As the reason for choosing it, Ryuji pointed to differences in how miso is made. Some miso is made simply over a short period (quick-brewed), while some goes through the traditional fermentation process. As far as Ryuji remembers, Yamabuki is not the quick-brewed kind, so it has a good aroma and strong umami.

In a segment on "Grandma's Motsuni" using this miso, Ryuji's grandmother appeared as a special guest and finished making the motsuni. Next, Ryuji made their own Kyomu Miso Soup: put half a tablespoon of miso, a handful of bonito powder, and 2 shakes of Ajinomoto in a bowl, then pour in hot water and stir to dissolve. Ryuji says the method is modeled on a simple Okinawan miso soup. Yamabuki miso itself contains no dashi.

The staff who tasted it said that even though it was just mixed together, the aroma was refined. Ryuji said they had made the same thing with ordinary miso before, and by comparison Yamabuki was overwhelmingly better. Ryuji said they plan to stick with this miso from now on, and that Yamabuki miso soup, pickles, and Fukkurinko are all they need.

The convenience store pick is the horumon nabe (offal hot pot) sold at Lawson. Ryuji has been eating it for a long time. When it was featured in this year's Lawson product review video, the response was huge, and 2025 was the year its deliciousness became widely known.

All you do is heat it, and when you open it, it's packed with offal. Ryuji recommends adding tofu and simmering it. The flavor is a spicy, non-sweet soy sauce base; since many people picture a sweet flavor when they think of horumon nabe, it can feel a little off the first time you eat it. The staff said the chewy, crunchy texture of the small pieces of offal was great and that it's a flavor made for drinkers.

Lawson's frozen fried rice, also featured in the earlier review video, made an appearance too. However, it isn't carried at every store, and some stores don't have it no matter how hard you look. Ryuji said it seems to be in short supply because they made it go viral.

The seventh item is Mishima Foods' furikake "Shigeki." While referring viewers to the earlier "Furikake Championship" for details, Ryuji called this wasabi furikake absurdly delicious. It goes especially well with yakisoba. The staff added that a previous video of yakisoba made with Shigeki and soy sauce had been viewed more than 1.2 million times.

For the demonstration, Ryuji used leftover Marutai bō ramen. Boil the noodles for 2–3 minutes, add a generous amount of Shigeki in an oiled frying pan, drizzle in a little soy sauce, and it's done. Ryuji reflected that it would have been even easier to simmer the noodles in the frying pan from the start.

The staff who tasted it said it was punchy and the perfect drinking snack. On the other hand, some said it wasn't as spicy as they expected. Ryuji offered their own explanation: wasabi's heat is volatile, so it mellows when coated in oil. Normally, it's quite spicy. Indeed, when the staff sprinkled it straight onto freshly cooked Fukkurinko, they were surprised by the heat: "I can't believe a furikake hits this hard."

Ryuji named two seasonings as things they've been using a tremendous amount this year.

The first is Mizkan's ponzu—not "Ajipon," but the clear ponzu that contains no soy sauce. What Ryuji is hooked on is pairing it with Ajishio. Ryuji also puts it in sours or uses it in place of lemon. Using it on fried food when you don't have a lemon saves money compared with fresh lemons. Ryuji recommended keeping it on hand the way you would lemon juice.

The second is kombu dashi. Because it lets you finish dishes with the refined aroma of kombu without adding a bonito scent, Ryuji has started keeping it stocked and uses quite a lot more of it now. The video also included footage of dishes made with these.

The final item is Ebara's curry roux "Yokohama Hakuraitei." It's the runaway winner of Ryuji's earlier "Curry Roux Championship," which set out to determine the most delicious store-bought curry roux. Before the championship, "What about Hakuraitei?" was the most common comment, and when Ryuji actually compared them, it really was the best.

To wrap up, Ryuji said the three items—ponzu, kombu dashi, and Hakuraitei—will likely appear quite often in their videos from now on. Ryuji noted that the recipes for each dish are in the corresponding videos and encouraged viewers to check them out, bringing "A Cooking Researcher's Best Buys of 2025" to a close.