Noodles topped with a towering flame: Sneak peek at Menbaka Fire Ramen
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Noodles topped with a towering flame: Sneak peek at Menbaka Fire Ramen
The Kyoto ramen store famous for setting its ramen afire is now in Singapore. We got a face up total of flames and lived to tell the tale.
This ramen is lit. (Photograph: Joyee Koo)
21 Nov 2022 05:52AM (Updated: 09 Jul 2022 eleven:09PM)
How much do I dearest my eyebrows? I asked myself, as I sat down at the brand new Menbaka Burn Ramen counter. I mean, did I really need them? Eyebrows are pretty much just decorative, aren't they?
If you've been to the original Menbaka in Kyoto or seen pictures or videos of the famous dish, in which your bowl of ramen is anointed with flaming green onion oil and a towering column of fire blazes upwardly in front of your face up, the same last-minute thought might pop into your head.
By this fourth dimension, however, it'southward also late to dorsum out, as the chef will have given you a very specific set up of instructions including, "Don't leave your seat", "Don't scream" and "Don't run away".
Of class, if you're hither in the first identify, you're clearly a thrill-seeker. Or a pyromaniac.
Menbaka's founder, ramen master Masamichi Miyazawa, is neither of those. He just really, actually loves light-green onions.
When he conceptualised the dish 36 years agone, he wasn't looking for theatrics or even a fire chemical element, he told me. He simply wanted to find the best way to bring out the flavour of Kyoto's famous "kujo negi" green onions.
Adding flaming negi oil to the greenish onion-topped ramen gives the already-flavourful broth an intense smokiness that makes the vegetable taste fifty-fifty sweeter and fresher.
Information technology took him half a twelvemonth to perfect the dish, and in the procedure, he singed off his hair and collected fire marks all over his arms, he said with a laugh.
Eating the ramen, though, actually comes with an extremely low element of danger, even if the fire looks dramatic, he said.
In the 36 years that Menbaka has been operating in Kyoto, at that place hasn't been a unmarried mishap. In fact, "The most unsafe thing that could happen is diners falling off their chairs in surprise," he quipped.
Here in the Singapore restaurant, the start outside of Kyoto, extensive safety measures are in identify. There'southward a state-of-the-art frazzle that whisks the flames away subsequently a couple of seconds. The counter is wide and so that diners are at least one metre away from the fire. And the use of phones for recording purposes isn't allowed at the counter, simply in case people attain besides close to the fire in their eagerness to capture the perfect shot.
Of course, the staff know that yous came here to get that video, so they're happy to get footage for you – there'due south a row of selfie sticks behind the counter, where they'll position your phone.
It was Master Miyazawa's son, Shin Miyazawa, who came up with this thought. Formerly working in luxury real estate in Tokyo, he entered his male parent'due south concern and moved the restaurant into the social media age.
His dad wasn't quite taken with the idea at first, Shin said, so he seized his chance when his begetter was in the infirmary for a pocket-sized procedure, and installed the selfie sticks. That was when tourists began to propel the ramen-ya to international fame.
The male parent-and-son duo managed to travel to Singapore for the launch of their beginning overseas outlet.
And then, what's the fire ramen experience actually like?
Start, they set the phase with some jaunty music. So, Master Miyazawa poured a small corporeality of flaming negi oil into my bowl, setting it alight. A bright, roaring plume immediately blazed to life. It was hot – my optics teared up a trivial – and, for that cursory moment in fourth dimension, hypnotically mesmerising.
When the flame died downward, I snapped back into my body equally all the staff members applauded, closing the curtains on that fiddling bit of theatre.
Were they applauding the chef's prowess or my bravery? I'd like to recall it was both.
So, I'll never go to tell my grandkids how I lost my eyebrows in the not bad boxing of Burn down Ramen – but I did get to slurp up a hot, dingy, smoky bowl of ramen and an intense green onion experience like no other.
Menbaka opens on Nov 24 at 3.40pm at Cineleisure Orchard #05-03.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/dining/sneak-peek-menbaka-fire-ramen-singapore-restaurant-250221
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