RAMEN 101 w/ NARISA SUZUKI - Fung Bros Food

I'm gonna steal this one. No! You were eyeing it the whole time. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to a very special Japanese episode of Fun Bros Food. And in today's video, we are here with Japanese cultural expert and friend, Narissa Suzuki. Hi, everyone! It's Narissa again. Narissa, in a previous video, you explained Tsukuman Ramen, which is a specific dipping style. But today, we are going to be covering the four basic types that most people are going to be having. Ramen is blowing up all around the country right now. So we gotta break it down for people. Yo, I am super excited to do this episode. Let's go! We are in the back of an authentic ramen dojo here at Ben 10. Before we eat the ramen, we gotta meet the people who are about to make it. Narissa, you are a food TV host on Japanese-American TV here in America. Normally, I usually explain in Japanese and talk, you know, in Japanese. But this time, in English, so it's really interesting for me. Okay. Okay, let's go talk to the chef. We are here with ramen chef... Where are you from, Taka? I'm from Alhambra. Oh, you're from Alhambra. Born and raised. Born and raised, yeah. From what I understand, the Japanese flavor palette is not that spicy, right? Yeah. It's not like... They don't like... We're, like, really sensitive, you know. We're, like, rad. Sensitive. It's all the... Spirited away. So we are here at the egg station. Please introduce yourself. My name is Yuta. You guys do two types of eggs here. Hard-boiled eggs and soft-boiled eggs. Soft-boiled eggs is a little trickier than a hard-boiled egg, right? He's gonna infuse it. Ouch! He's about to crack it open, like... Oh my! Do you see that? Is there anything else about a ramen kitchen, like, need-to-know or, like, a word that you guys are looking for? Mizukiri! That's where you slap the water. You drain it. What's one last thing that you want people to know about ramen? Ramen's good, you know. Itadakimasu! Okay, so we just ordered all four styles of ramen. They do have some appetizers here at Ben 10. This one is really interesting. This is egg on eggs. Eggs on eggs. So this is a special egg potato salad that they have. This is crazy because there's a soft-boiled egg on top of potato egg salad. He's being real surgical right here. Uh-oh. Oh... Is that Gudetama? No! Let's see what's inside of this potato salad. I believe in the potato salad there's kura-bota. Kura-bota sausage? Kura-bota. It's a black pork. Black pork? I've never had black pork before. This is crazy. Oishii! That's pretty good. Yuzu mojito? What is this? Oh man. These are original drinks from Ben 10 Ramen. So they made these up. This is lemon basil lime thyme yuzu mojito. Woo! I'm excited. Kanpai! Kanpai? What does kanpai mean? Cheers! So fresh! How do you say that in Japanese? Fresh. Is it lemonade? Lemonade? Lemonade. How do you say McDonald's? McDonald's. The first of four ramens that we're going to introduce to you today is shoyu. Shoyu ramen! So Narissa, you're about to show them the shoyu. Alright. Shoyu, if you guys don't know, is actually soy sauce. Okay, so this is soy sauce broth. Yes. Is this one of the more traditional flavors of ramen? I think so. I grew up eating this and it's Tokyo style. I heard that shoyu, aka soy sauce broth ramen, is the oldest style of ramen broth. It's like the vanilla ice cream, right? They actually give out hair ties here. This looks like something else, but this is a hair tie. Protection for your hair. Look at that Japanese technique. One thing that you guys gotta remember is in Japan, ramen is usually eaten very quickly. Because they don't want the noodles to get soggy. Obviously in America, we kind of don't have that culture of eating food so fast. But what you were just doing was slurping, letting air in as you cooled the noodles at the same time that you ate them. You can eat this in five minutes. Alright, with me right now is probably the most popular flavor of ramen, which is the tonkotsu. Alright, so here, this broth, I'm going to taste it. Yo, that is super rich, super smooth. The thing about tonkotsu ramen is that it's a pork broth, and it's made out of pork bones. But what makes it thick, because it's a lot of the bones and the collagen that is broken down to make it thicker. Yeah, did you know it's really good for your skin? Because it has a lot of collagen. I think tonkotsu is the most popular style because it usually has the most flavor, it's the most fatty, it's the most rich. And real quick, I want to tell you guys about the chashu. Oftentimes, a lot of people will stew it, simmer it, or sous-vide it. And then, how you get this burnt edge right here. So after it's cooked, they'll put it on the plate, sear it with a fire. You were eyeing it the whole time. Alright, let me show you this egg real quick. This is the injected egg that we were talking about earlier. As you can see, ooh, look at that. That ain't no regular egg, bro. You can see the sauce. I personally like the injected egg. I think it has more flavor to it. A lot of the other eggs, they're simmered in soy sauce. But to me, that doesn't get you enough flavor. This is straight to the center, straight to the heart of the egg. I like it. I'm so excited. This is the spicy miso broth. But this is actually a little bit more of an Americanized style because it's spicy. They do have miso ramen in Japan. It's very popular. But here, they took the miso, the chicken broth, the fish broth, and then they threw a bunch of spice in there. Universal, I see your face turning red. I gotta take a look at the add-ins. What am I looking at? This is the seaweed. Okay, I'm gonna put it in. Put this in as well. I think that's garlic. And then I'm gonna put even more pepper flakes. Yo, check out this egg. I love the way they slice this egg. It's almost like a chef's salad, kinda. I gotta try the broth first of the spicy miso. Oh, it's spicy. Here's another tip for you. So when you slurp noodle... And you hold the bottom of the ramen. Oh, so it doesn't fly everywhere. You hold it in place. I feel like for people where the tonkatsu might be too thick for them, this is gonna be like a nice, you know, a nice lighter feeling. A little bit less creamy. Now, I can fearlessly go in. Because I'm not gonna lie, I was holding back earlier. Mmm, that's good. The fourth type is the tsukemen. Tsukemen! So, you guys remember we actually did a tsukemen episode? So this one, thick noodle. The reason we have thicker noodle, is because it can catch a lot of soup. Like you can see that the thicker noodle, it's gonna be covered in more sauce. Because it's thicker, it's gonna absorb it more. And it's gonna be tastier. Also, I would say another good thing about tsukemen is that it doesn't get soggy as quickly because the noodles are not sitting in the soup. You're dipping it and then eating it immediately. Alright, so I'm not gonna lie. The tsukemen could easily get very, very messy if you try to slurp it too fast. But as you can see, Narissa is a pro and she was holding one end, keeping the noodle still so it didn't fly everywhere. You guys, thank you so much for watching that ramen 101 video. In the comment section below, number one, make sure you let us know if you've ever tried authentic ramen from a ramen shop before and what you thought of it. And number two, make sure you let us know another noodle soup that you'd like to see us cover on Fun Bros Food. Alright, shout out to Narissa Suzuki for being here with us today. We're here at Bentan Ramen in San Gabriel, California. Alright everybody, until next time, we out. Peace! Yo, you guys, I love chicken karaage. Tehepero. Tehepero? What does that mean? Tehepero is like a cute way of apologizing. But this was the kawaii lesson for this episode. By the way, you can find it on Fuji TV out in LA. Peace!