Here’s another Japanese variety I got out of the very final ZenPop ramen subscription box. This is a brand from Japan that I’ve never tried before, and it doesn’t look like many of their products make it to the USA compared to other brands like Nissin, Maruchan, and Myojo. Neat! I’m always excited to try something new.
Read more: Review: TableMark Touhoku no Aji Yonezawa RamenTableMark began life in 1956 as Katokichi Fisheries Co., a frozen seafood company. They began selling frozen udon back in 1974, and then ultimately changed their name to TableMark in 2010. Sometime in there (their company history doesn’t specify when), they added dried instant noodles to their repertoire.
This bowl is one of those regional specialty ramen varieties like you may see from companies like Marutai or Yamadai. This specialty comes from Touhoku, and it’s a rich blend of pork, chicken, fish, and soy with some chewy air-dried noodles and a bunch of toppings, including fish cake and pork. That all sounds splendid to me, and it’s a regional ramen specialty I don’t believe I’ve specifically had before.
The salt equivalent is 5.4g, putting the sodium level at about 2126mg, which is pretty high.
Inside, we’ve got those air-dried noodles, a liquid soup packet, and some dried toppings. Pretty much everything I mentioned above is in here, and if you’re curious about the which specific fish is in here, it appears to be sardines and bonito. The dried toppings are seasoned pork, narutomaki fish cake, bamboo shoots, and green onion.
Noodles:
The air-dried noodles in here are on the thinner side with a medium chew after being steeped for 4 minutes per the instructions. I’m surprised at how pleasant the texture was even after sitting in the broth for so long while I ate. Impressive and honestly not so far off from fresh noodles.
- 8/10
Spiciness:
No spiciness here at all.
- 0/10
Overall:
The broth is a flavorful mixture of umami flavors: soy sauce and (surprisingly) what I think is a little miso being at the forefront for me. Underneath that there’s a nice hit of smoky, very light sweet fish flavor. I wouldn’t call it fishy per se, so those of you who dislike seafood broth may still appreciate how this all blends together. It’s salty (in a very good way) and it has a nice fatty consistency as well, something I expected when I saw a few globs of coagulated fat in the liquid packet. I know “coagulated fat” sounds like it could be gross but it is honestly a hallmark of a good instant ramen sachet, kind of like what you see in Ichiran or the more premium Marutai varieties. The toppings are a less-impressive story though. I expected a single piece of pork, I was even braced for a single slice of narutomaki, but besides both of those being one-and-done, there was just one single measly piece of bamboo in the dried pack. And it was good – nice and crunchy with a slightly fermented flavor – but I needed more of it. The noodles and soup I thought needed just a little more texture from the toppings, and a couple extra bamboo pieces would’ve helped immensely. The narutomaki was fairly standard, with a nice supple texture and mild sweetness, but definitely on the thinner side. Speaking of thin, the pork chashu was super thin but not bad, even better than I had expected it would be (most of these Japanese bowls have chashu that’s closer to a slice of salami than it is to real chashu), but it had a little bit of a gritty texture like it never fully rehydrated. Still, it definitely had some nice flavor on its own, possibly soy and mirin. Good rehydration on the green onions too, and there was a nice amount of them. After all was said and done, I kept coming back to how satisfyingly savory the broth is. I’m absolutely going to look for more TableMark products in the future after enjoying this. Tasty stuff and surprisingly good noodles.
- 8.5/10
