Ikkousha Semi-Instant Hakata Tonkotsu 博多一幸舎豚骨

Ikkousha is one of the best and most famous tonkotsu ramen shops in Fukuoka, located in the Hakata area near the main station. Ikkousha serves the well known Hakata style tonkotsu which has brought it to international fame. If you aren’t able to travel to Kyushu yourself, this is the next best thing to get a good approximation of the ramen bowls served there.

Content

This big instant ramen pack comes with 4 servings including:

Semi-instant thin Hakata style noodles. Not as dry as instant noodles, not as wet as fresh noodles.
Soup base package
Spicy miso mustard greens
Freeze dried green onion (negi)

Preparation

Boil 270ml of water in pot or kettle and mix in bowl with soup base and dried green onion. Mix well.
Meanwhile boil noodles for 1 minute in rolling boil water
Drain noodles and add to piping hot bowl of soup
Add spicy miso mustard greens on top

*Egg, chashu and fresh green onions added by me*

Review

These packs are scary good. So good, they make you realize that you often get similar things served in not-so-top ramen shops around the world. A lot of shops use these kinds of pastes and just mix it with hot water, just as I did at home. And make no mistake: This tastes incredible for something that can be whipped up in under 5 minutes at home.

Having had the original at Ikkousha recently, I can attest that it definitely gives a good impression of the real thing, but there is definitely some distance between the instant and the shop ramen bowl. But that’s more because Ikkousha is serving an incredibly fragrant and funky bowl of tonkotsu ramen.

The soup has a great creaminess and surprisingly forward flavor, due to the spicy miso greens the flavor can be changed at any time into a kind of spicy miso tonkotsu, which is very satisfying, but quite far from the original Hakata tonkotsu. Not necessarily a bad thing, just something to know, before you buy this pack.

Overall, probably some of the best instant ramen I had so far, creamy flavorful soup and spicy miso greens stand out for me as excellent. Get a pack of this, dress it up with some chashu and fresh green onions and trick your friends into believing you have mastered tonkotsu ramen.