Ramen News Recap July - December 2021

To say “it’s been a while” since my last ramen news recap is a bit of an understatement. I guess, once you drop the ball on one, it kinda gets difficult to pick it up again. Well, let me at least attempt to collect what happened in the last 6 months of 2021. Or what I can still piece together.

Blogs, Guides and Stories:

Mensho has been opening stores around the world. If I remember correctly, both places were planned to open earlier, but then, ya know, COVID. But now, finally, their Mensho in Delhi opened and their Mensho San Francisco location reopened.
- Mensho Tokyo SF on Google Maps
- Mensho Tokyo Delhi on Google Maps
What’s happening in London’s ramen world? Apparently Tim Anderson is making something he calls Tokyo Modern Ramen and you can watch him make it.
The ramen movie "Come Back Anytime” has been released and…I honestly still don’t know where I can watch it. However it won many awards and you can at least find a trailer and some details on their website.

Videos:

Is It Worth it Owning a Ramen Shop in Japan is an eye opening video by “Life Where I’m From”, which talks about the realities and the money involved in running a ramen shop. Must watch if you have ever toyed with the idea of opening a ramen shop yourself.
Mogu Mogu has been killing it on YouTube with their Japanese food videos for a while now. Recently their 19歳ラーメン店長 19 Years Old Ramen Master and ラーメン屋台 - Ramen Japanese street food - Old style ramen stall have been interesting ramen related things to watch. But honestly, their whole channel is worth watching.
Japanese food craftsman is another relatively new channel, similar to Mogu Mogu, with lots of “behind the scenes” shots and portraits of certain stores. Lots of it ramen related like the video about Menya Tyson in Hakata or Oshige Shokudo.
Paolo from Tokyo got to be behind the counter of Menya Kaijin for a day. Worth the watch if you are into fish based ramen!
In October, Gordon Ramsay published one of the probably worst ramen cooking videos ever. If you are looking for a good amount of cringe and facepalming, check out his Homemade Ramen Made Quick travesty.

Recipes:

Way of Ramen has of course been active on YouTube during this time. I want to highlight here his attempt at recreating the Morisoba from Taishoken and him showing how to make chiyu chicken oil.
It’s been a while since Kaonashi posted some recipe videos. But he was still quite active in the timeframe of this news recap, for example with his tonkotsu gyokai tsukemen recipe or with the kombusui tsukemen recipe. Hopefully he will be back with more recipes soon!
How to pimp your instant shio ramen packs was presented by the guys from Japanese Ramen Noodle Lab Q. Although the video is in Japanese, it should be easy enough to understand. You can also use the auto translate function of YouTube.

Podcasts:

I was honored in August by being able to join the Ramen Hunter podcast for the first time, together with Michael aka Noodle Slurp and Cody aka Ramenguidejapan.