If you’re a ramen lover, then you’ll know that most ramen restaurants will offer a selection of toppings with your bowl. Common toppings include hard-boiled eggs, bamboo shoots, leeks, extra meat, and the like. However, one ramen restaurant is taking their toppings a tad bit out there.
Everyone knows that spicy foods are best paired with sweet flavours, so this ramen restaurant literally did just that. Their Sweet and Spicy Miso Ramen (Amakara Miso Ramen) is actually a bowl of spicy miso ramen, topped with an entire soft-serve ice cream cone!
The serving looks exactly like you imagine: the ice cream cone looks like it was dropped in the bowl by accident – only the sprinkling of savoury seasoning on top of the ice cream tells you that it’s supposed to be part of the dish.
How does it taste? According to Sora News reviewer Master Blaster, the ice cream stayed firm and cold for quite some time, and didn’t really mix or blend in with the miso-based broth as one would expect. Even though it seems more logical for the ice cream to have a plain vanilla flavour, it’s not unusual to be served with a chocolate-vanilla mixed cone.
The restaurant made the bold choice to use an earthy miso base rather than a salty tonkotsu base, which conflicted with the chocolate flavour at times, according to Master Blaster. However, since the miso broth had a spicy kick, the reviewer said that the chocolate flavour “became most dominant and gave an interesting smoky feeling to the spicy miso broth.”
If you’re not sure whether this ramen is for you, the fact that the ice cream doesn’t seem to melt into the soup – it apparently just floats around the soup in an oily film – doesn’t help. Either way, it’s a fun way to incorporate your main meal with a dessert!
Sadly, if you’re thinking of trying this unusual Amakara Miso Ramen (850 yen), it’s only available in Japan – at Osaka’s Franken, to be precise. According to the restaurant, it’ll remain on the menu until the end of March – hopefully borders open up by then.
Until then, we’ll have to contend with making our own DIY versions at our favourite local ramen restaurants.
