Tenkaippin Kyoto Noko Toripaitan Instant Ramen 天下一品京都濃厚鶏白湯

*Tenkaippin instant ramen bowl with Kyoto Nokou Toripaitan flavor*

Tenkaippin is one of the most well known ramen chains in Japan. While overshadowed by Ippudo and Ichiran in regards of popularity among tourists, Tenkaippin has a big place in the hearts of many Japanese, who associate it with nostalgic and comforting creamy chicken soup ramen. Their specialty is a creamy “toripaitan” chicken soup, quite similar to the pork based tonkotsu soup.

Tenkaippin normally does not produce instant ramen, however they made an exception to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their founding and teamed up with Sanyo to make this bowl happen. Can this bowl recreate the soul food feel of a hot and steamy bowl of Tenkaippin ramen?

Content

Non fried thin noodles
Freeze dried meat and veggies
Dry soup powder package
Liquid soup (fat/oil) package

Preparation

Take everything out of the bowl and fill the dried meat and veggies back in.
Fill up to the line with boiling hot water, close the lid and put liquid soup package on top of the lid to heat it up.
After 4 minutes (I recommend more like 3:30 or even less), open the lid and add both soup packs. Stir well.

Review

Mixing the soup packets into the hot boiling water with the noodles immediately fills your nostrils with the familiar toripaitan smell you would experience when entering a Tenkaippin store. The soup is thick and creamy as one would expect and has a decent chicken flavor. However it does lack some punch and certain “funk” that characterizes the original Tenkaippin ramen bowls. The bowl also gets kinda boring after a while, although one could argue that this is more a feature than a bug, since normal Tenkaippin bowls face the same problem in my eyes.

The thin noodles fit well to the soup, which clings quite nicely to them. However I am not sure who decided that 4 minutes are the correct cooking time for them. I would definitely go for 3 minutes or even shorter next time. Overall, they are quite good for non fried noodles.

However the toppings are quite disappointing. They basically disappear to the bottom of the bowl right away and don’t really make an appearance, visually or taste wise. They could have upped their game here substantially. Therefore, if you go for this bowl, make sure to prepare some toppings of your own, like some chashu, eggs and fresh green onion.

Overall, one of the few toripaitan instant ramen bowls out there and definitely an acceptable attempt to recreate Tenkaippin’s famous toripaitan in instant ramen form. For everyone who has never eaten at Tenkaippin, not necessarily an absolute must-try.