The number of foreign visitors to the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum exceeded 150,000 people for the first time in 2013. Since last July, the Museum has sold ramen (global standard ramen) that does not include meat, fish, and alcohol, for those who are unable to eat traditional ramen due to their religion and beliefs.
Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum has made improvements to various aspects of its attraction that foreigners had concerns before, such as free Wi-Fi, improved prayer rooms, and creation of menu pictograms (emoticon icons).
The Museum has also received many enquires, particularly about its global standard ramen, by many Muslim tourists that had visited them from Indonesia and Malaysia as well as vegetarians from Europe and the U.S.
Most of the visitors commented that, “there are very few places I can take my Muslim and vegetarian friends, but this Museum has provide us with another option.” However, the global standard ramen served at the Museum differs from traditional ramen, both on its appearance and taste.
Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum wants the world to know that Ramen, is a Japanese food culture. They focused on creating ramen that does not use meat, fish, and alcohol that both looks and tastes similar to traditional ramen.
New global standard ramen for Muslims and vegetarians
The global standard ramen developed was ramen that did not use meat, fish, and alcohol. While visitors were highly satisfied with this ramen, the Museum couldn’t help but wonder if it was possible to create ramen with no meat, with compromising its taste to traditional ramen.
For the sake of their visitors who have come all the way to the Museum, they started making efforts towards this ambition. The Museum studied the ancient Japanese techniques involved in Japanese and vegetarian food making, and succeeded in developing a ramen using dried vegetables, soy meat, and soy milk, etc. that is comparable to taste of traditional ramen. This ramen is known as the new global standard ramen.
France NARUMI-IPPUDO
Menu name: “Masaka…!” Rich and deep vegetarian noodles… 880 yen
Type: Vegan (vegetables only)
Ingredients: Soup containing dried tomatoes, onions, celery, mushrooms, and carrots mixed with soup soy sauce, flavor extracted from kelp and dried porcini mushrooms to create the ultimate vegetarian ramen. Topped with baked tomato instead of the traditional roast beef and olive oil to finish.
Kumamoto Komurasaki
Menu name: King ramen made solely from vegetables… 900 yen
Type: Vegan (vegetables only)
Ingredients: Soy milk is added to the vegetable soup containing onions, cabbage, potatoes, and apples etc, to re-create the pork soup taste, flavor, and texture. Soy meat is used in replacement of roast pork, and this ramen is similar in appearance to traditional ramen.
▲Vege-broth that draws out the sweetness of roast pork made from soy meat
Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum global standard ramen
6 of the Museum’s 9 stores currently provide global standard ramen.
| Store name | Type | Flavor | Price (yen) | Vege-tables | Dairy prdts | Egg | Alcohol | Fish | Pork | Chicken | Beef |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryu Shanghai | Vegan | Miso | 870 | ○ | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |
| Men no Bo Toride | Ovo-Vegetarian | Miso | 930 | ○ | x | ○ | x | x | x | x | x |
| Muku Zweite | Ovo-Vegetarian | Miso | 900 | ○ | x | ○ | x | x | x | x | x |
| Komurasaki | Vegan | Salt | 900 | ○ | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |
| Shina Soba-ya | Ovo-Vegetarian | Salt | 930 | ○ | x | ○ | x | x | x | x | x |
| NARUMI-IPPUDO | Vegan | Soy sauce | 880 | ○ | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |
NARUMI-IPPUDO opened on October 29.
○ = used
x = not used
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