Ryuji Compares SUSURU's "Kita no Shoyu Chiho": The FamilyMart Chilled Version vs. His Own Homemade Recreation

Ryuji and staff member A-ko had already eaten at the actual Kita no Shoyu Chiho shop. Because of that, Ryuji warned up front that he would judge the chilled version harshly. He also said he doesn't associate convenience-store ramen with being tasty, and that since it's chilled, it probably wouldn't be as good as the real thing.

The package lists 583 kcal and 7.8 g of salt. Ryuji called the salt content "on the high side," but accepted that it's about what you'd expect for this type of ramen. The toppings are bean sprouts and ground meat, along with what looks like back fat. It's meant to be heated in a 500 W microwave for 5 minutes. When they opened it, the noodles were quite yellow, and the two said they were close to the shop's noodles. The back fat had melted, and there was plenty of seasoned ground meat.

Right after starting to eat, Ryuji was surprised at how much the soup tasted like the shop's. He said the ginger and meat came through strongly. A-ko also said it was tastier than another product they had eaten before. Ryuji repeated that he couldn't believe convenience-store chilled ramen could be this good, and that this was the first time he had ever found chilled ramen tasty.

Here is what he praised specifically. Including ground meat was a good move. He didn't find the noodles soft at all. The bean sprouts were crisp and the meat was good too. The richness of the soup was like the shop's, and it captured the feel of the tonchintan (clear pork broth) well. As for saltiness, he said that while it has the strong saltiness you'd expect from ramen, it isn't a sharp, stinging saltiness.

A-ko had been reading the comments on the video in which SUSURU announced the release. She said that this time she could find only positive comments from people who had tried it. Ryuji explained why: the original shop is delicious, so if you can recreate it properly, of course it's going to be delicious.

The price is 698 yen including tax, which Ryuji admitted is ambitious for chilled ramen. Even so, he gave it an S rating. He said it was the first time he had ever given chilled ramen an S. He said several times that he had a new appreciation for SUSURU, and laughingly apologized for having teased him in the past.

The second half is the recreation recipe video filmed before the FamilyMart version went on sale. According to Ryuji, SUSURU's other products weren't all that great, but the Kita no Shoyu Chiho shop alone was extremely delicious. He was so impressed that he made a recreation recipe the very next day. He and A-ko confirmed that he made it on March 26 of this year.

However, they had visited during the pre-opening period. Ryuji recalled that he didn't release the recipe right away, because putting out a recreation recipe just as the shop opened would get in the way of its business. He said, somewhat self-deprecatingly, that he's always getting in SUSURU's way. A-ko watches SUSURU's videos a lot and said the shop also serves abura soba and kelp tsukemen. The two agreed they wanted to go again.

Ryuji revealed that when he recreates a restaurant's flavor, people sometimes tell him "don't get in their way." Still, he personally wants people to try the original first. He said going to the actual shop and comparing the two would also be quite worthwhile. What he wants to convey through recreations is more the intellectual curiosity of "so that's how you can recreate it."

The feature Ryuji highlighted about Kita no Shoyu Chiho is the cooking method. For Sapporo miso ramen, you stir-fry the toppings in a pot, add the soup, bring it to a boil with the miso, and pour it over the noodles. Kita no Shoyu Chiho, he said, makes shoyu ramen using this same process. The stamina ramen he made on the channel before was also made by stir-frying the toppings and then adding the soup and bringing it to a boil.

The recreation follows this process too. According to Ryuji, the key is to bring the soup to a boil as soon as it goes in and to eat it right away.

The ingredients are garlic, ginger, bean sprouts, pork belly, noodles, menma, and long green onion. At the shop, the garlic was quite strong, to the point that you could tell it was garlic the moment you took a bite. So he uses a generous 15 g of garlic, about two cloves of large garlic. He also uses 8 g of ginger. Ryuji said it's rare for a ramen to have this much aromatics. Both are finely minced.

The shop uses ground meat, and back fat floats in the soup. But back fat is hard to get at home. Butchers sometimes sell it, but the shop simmers the back fat for hours until it's jiggly and then crumbles it in, which you can't do at home. So the plan was to finely chop pork belly into a mince and simmer it to get a back-fat flavor. He prepares 80 g of pork belly, ideally a fatty part. This time, he cut thin slices into strips, then turned them sideways and chopped them even finer. Ryuji explained that ordinary lean ground meat alone doesn't have enough fat, making it hard to get a tasty shoyu ramen.

For the noodles, he uses Sapporo fresh ramen from Kikusui, a Hokkaido manufacturer. Sapporo fresh ramen noodles are yellow, and the noodles at SUSURU's shop were very yellow as well, so these get closer, he said. If you can't find them, ordinary Chinese-style noodles are fine. According to Ryuji, noodles sold at supermarkets are usually about 130 g per portion, but these Kikusui noodles are a smaller 110 g per portion. So he recommends using 1⅓ portions. That works out to using up a four-serving bag in three goes, making it a slightly large serving.

While chopping the pork belly, Ryuji talked about how easy shoyu ramen is to recreate. With tonkotsu, you have to simmer it from the bones, but with shoyu ramen, you can pull it off at home if you put in the effort. That's why, in Ryuji's view, it takes a lot of nerve to make shoyu ramen your business. A-ko responded that shops specializing in thick, rich chicken soup also seem like they'd be hard to make at home.

Ryuji said iekei is also something you can't make at home, then laughed that he recreates it anyway. Near the end, he also said that, for him personally, iekei is the hardest to recreate, while Jiro-style is fairly doable. Lean on pork umami and umami seasoning, and it comes out Jiro-like, he said.

Put 2 tablespoons of lard in a frying pan. Vegetable oil works too, but lard gives a richer result. The shop's soup has quite a lot of oil floating on it, and he said you need to add this much to get Chiho. Stir-fry the garlic and ginger until fragrant, add the chopped pork belly, and season lightly with salt and pepper. Ryuji showed the large amount of fat that had rendered into the pan and stressed that this is the umami. He added that if you cook it a bit longer, the fat actually turns silky.

Since you want to bring the soup to a boil and eat it right after adding it, the seasoning mix is made in advance. The soup at SUSURU's shop is a tonchintan, so pork flavor is added with 2 teaspoons of Chukaaji. Ryuji describes Chukaaji as the store-bought seasoning with the most pork extract in it. Soy sauce is 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon. For umami, since there's already umami from the meat, he uses Ajinomoto rather than Hi-Me, adding a fairly generous 7 shakes. The shop had white pepper on the table, so he adds 3 shakes of white pepper and also sprinkles more on when eating.

Whereas the original uses about 50 g of bean sprouts, this time he increased it to 80–100 g because he wanted to eat a lot of them. The bean sprouts only need a quick stir-fry. Add water heated piping hot in the microwave (300 cc in the recipe in the description) and the seasoning mix, and bring it to a full boil over high heat. Ryuji said the color of the soup, the way the oil floats, and the slight cloudiness were all the same as the shop's.

Boil the noodles in a large pot and pull them out a little firm. Keep the soup boiling right up until plating, and bring it to a vigorous boil one last time. Ryuji showed that the shop used this kind of bowl, then filled the bowl with hot water to warm it, as ramen shops do. Since he was short on time, he warmed it only briefly before pouring out the water.

Pour in the soup, top with menma and long green onion, and it's done. Ryuji admitted that because he increased the bean sprouts, they dominated the look too much. Still, he said he prefers this many bean sprouts and would like to order extra bean sprouts at the shop too.

Ryuji's first reaction after eating was "the first bite is already the shop." A-ko started with the soup and said the pork belly parts were really good. As for the noodles, Ryuji said that not-too-firm noodles suit this ramen better. He recalled that SUSURU's shop didn't cook them firm either. However, he said firm versus soft is entirely a matter of preference, so he leaves it to viewers. He also said that filming insert shots makes the noodles go soggy, so viewers should eat it as soon as it's ready.

Ryuji also cited staying piping hot as an advantage of this method. The soup is boiled right up until serving, and ramen with lots of oil doesn't cool down easily. Ryuji speculated that because Sapporo is cold and many people want to eat something piping hot, that may be why this reheating method developed. He said the shop had explained that, rather than the usual approach of putting the kaeshi (seasoning base) in the bowl and pouring the soup over it, they heat it together with the toppings, and that's what makes it tasty. He explained that the soup is brown and cloudy rather than jet black because it's simmered with the pork.

A-ko doesn't usually drink much of the soup, but this time she drank almost all of it. Her verdict was "so delicious," adding that about one minute firmer might be better for her. Ryuji promised to make it firmer next time, without filming.

Finally, Ryuji touched on the fact that opinions on Kita no Shoyu Chiho are divided. It's an extremely tasty ramen, he said, but many people also call it plain. As for why, Ryuji thinks it may be because ramen fans tend to seek out punchy Jiro-like bowls or iekei with soup you can't make at home. He also said there's no right answer to what makes ramen good in the first place, and that some people even say iekei isn't tasty.

That said, Ryuji admitted he could never have come up with this ramen himself. The idea of getting a shoyu flavor using the Sapporo miso ramen method wasn't part of his knowledge, he said. Ryuji's assessment is that SUSURU had that knowledge, which is why he was able to make a ramen that, while unconventional, many people find delicious. The video ends with Ryuji urging viewers to visit the actual shop first, and those who live too far away to make the generic version.