National Ramen Day brings Japanese cuisine to Garden and Western

Nobody loves ramen more than college students.

My earliest memories of ramen are sharing pre-packaged Maruchen chicken ramen with my mother and her telling me jokingly, “You’ll be living on this in college.”

While I do cook more than ramen (I run a recipe column here, after all), my mother’s prophecy has held true: I have always kept a pack of ramen in my dorm and apartment pantry as a late-night meal option.

Ramen noodles, a Japanese-style noodle dish of Chinese origin, is among the easiest and cheapest hot meals to cook. With most brands costing $1 or less per meal, instant ramen is a busy college chef’s best friend.

Although there’s nothing quite like a cup of Maruchen noodles with microwaved Oxford mug water, ramen noodles are traditionally served with more add-ins than a Maruchen flavor packet. Traditionally, the dish includes a variety of flavorful add-ins, like miso broth, scallions, tofu, pork, egg, bok choy or seaweed.

For National Ramen Day on April 4, Miami dining services offered students a chance to make their own traditional ramen with a ramen buffet. At 11:30 a.m., both Garden and Western Dining Commons had lines of students ready to try a fresh bowl of ramen.

Betta Nies, a sophomore emerging technology in business and design major, was among the first in line for Western’s ramen buffet.

“This is wonderful that Miami does this,” Nies said. “I don’t have to cook my own ramen.”

With shredded pork, sliced pork, carrots, bok choy, scallions, egg and mushroom add-in options, students could customize their ramen to include as many of their favorite toppings as possible.

Some students in line at Western Dining Commons were repeat visitors from last year’s National Ramen Day celebration.

Junior Katie Jachim, a linguistics and history major, topped her ramen bowl with scallions, egg, sliced pork and carrot.

“I like the events, I think they’re really cute,” Jachim said. “I went to the ramen event last year and it was really good, so coming in today, I was really excited they’re doing it again.”

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With all of the excitement, I was excited to try my own ramen bowl. I opted for the sliced pork over the shredded pork and added scallions, carrots and copious amounts of bok choy.

Although my noodles felt generally undercooked, the broth had a strong flavor, and the sliced pork tasted delicious. In the future, I think it would be helpful to serve the broth boiling so vegetable add-ins would be able to cook in the broth and better absorb the flavors.

Nonetheless, I consider National Ramen Day to have been a fun shake-up to my usual weekly lunch routine. Dining hall events like this one allow on-campus students to experiment with new foods or enjoy special treats during the week.

For students looking to replicate traditional ramen at home, adding ingredients like scallions, diced veggies, a hard-boiled egg or sriracha to a bowl of instant ramen can go a long way to elevate the nutritional value and taste of cheaper ramen options.

Additionally, Ramen Hachi, located Uptown, offers an excellent variety of ramen options, including my favorite black garlic tonkotsu ramen.

perkin16@miamioh.edu