A Very Berry Ramen Experience — “Susususustrawberry Ramen”

Here at RocketNews24, we’ve certainly brought to you our share of stories on unusual ramen noodles, from chilled blue ramen to ramen that’s too disgusting to eat. Well, once again, one of our reporters was brave enough to try another very, shall we say, “interesting” ramen. And yes, as you can tell from the picture, it contains … strawberries.

The ramen in question was served for just two days at the shop Papapapapain (even the name of the shop is unique!) located in the Ogikubo area of Tokyo.

They actually specialize in “pineapple ramen”, and although using pineapple based stock in the soup and cut pineapples as topping may seem like a bold recipe for ramen, the shop has a huge following of fans.

Not only has the shop featured in multiple articles on our Japanese site, we’ve also previously ranked the shop on our English site as number 3 in our list of top 5 ramen shops any ramen lover shouldn’t miss. And although they’ve now finished serving their strawberry ramen, we just had to let you know what it was like.

The new “Susususustrawberry” ramen, as it was named, was sold on January 15th and 17th at a price of 800 yen ($9) a bowl. From what our reporter observed, the soup, made from beef bone stock was first poured into the bowl along with a mixture of strawberry and cream paste, after which the noodles and sliced strawberries were added. So How did it taste?

All in all, the ramen was a very complex mixture of different tastes. If a regular bowl of ramen can be described for example as “50pts for soup + 50 pts for the noodle =100pts for a very tasty bowl of ramen”, then perhaps this strawberry ramen can be described as “5pts +7pts + 1pt + 7pts + 2pts + 4pts + 9pts + 1pt + 8pts + 7pts + 3pts + 9pts + 4pts + 8pts + 7pts + 2pts + 3pts + 6pts + 4pts + 3pts =100pts” for all the various tastes and flavors from the seasoning and stock (not to mention cream and fruit) that are combined in this ramen. Unconventional, certainly, but our reporter thought the complex combination actually resulted in a delicious bowl of ramen.

And the strawberries? Although berries can taste sour sometimes, that wasn’t the case here. Perhaps because of the cream, the strawberries added to the ramen a slight sweetness that lasts in the mouth for quite a while. The flavor of the beef bone stock and the noodles in addition provided the standard ramen components to create what was a surprisingly delightful experience for the palate.

But strawberries and cream with ramen, really? Even the shop owner commented in one of his tweets that “customers are welcome to use seasonings made available at the shop to adjust the taste of the Susususustrawberry ramen, in case it’s not to their liking”.

Well, our reporter says it certainly was an interesting sensation to taste the two very different flavors at the same time, almost like having two pathways to sense taste. Some people may say that the flavors would taste better separately, and yes, that may be true, but there definitely was something special about the combined taste which you couldn’t experience unless they were blended together.

And if plain strawberry ramen wasn’t adventurous enough for some customers and they wanted to have the full “strawberry” experience, they also had the option of adding condensed milk to the ramen.

So, did people actually go and eat this ramen? The shop first announced that the number of servings of the ramen would be limited to 40-50 for just one day, and they apparently didn’t sell out the first day, but when they extended sales to a second day, the ramen sold out completely.

If you’re in Tokyo and interested in trying their signature pineapple ramen, or any other unique ramen they might come up with in the future the shop details are as listed below. Have a jolly, fruity eating experience!

Papapapapain Shop Details:
Address: 3-12-1 Nishiogiminami Suginami-ku, Nisshin Nishiogi Plaza 1F, Tokyo
Access: 1min walk from JR Nishiogikubo Station (South Exit)
Business Hours: Open from 12:00, Closed Wednesdays
Twitter: https://twitter.com/paishio (Japanese)
Website: http://www.papapapapine.com/ (Japanese)