I was at Costco recently and came across Pulmuone Foods USA’s Tonkatsu Miso Ramen. It looked appealing to me for two servings for a cost of $11.99. In the San Francisco Bay Area, a single bowl of ramen at a restaurant starts around that much, so this looked like a cost effective at home alternative.
Before moving to California, I don’t think I ever had real fresh ramen noodles in my life. I only had the instant ramen noodles, which really doesn’t do justice to the fresh kind. The noodles in the Pumuone package are “fresh” and not instant. I’m really happy to say that these ramen noodles (the whole package) are the best ramen noodles I’ve “made” at home.
Let’s take a look at what’s in the package and how the ramen looks at various stages of preparation. After that I will give my final take on these noodles.
When you first open the package, this is what you see:
One serving has this: a bag of ramen, a bag of broth, a bag of cooked pork belly, and the dried vegetable topping packet:
This is what the pork belly looks like unpacked:
The dried vegetable toppings unpacked: 
After bring the broth to a boil at a medium heat, I placed the ramen and the pork and cooked for about 2 minutes. I then added the vegetable toppings and cooked for another 30 seconds, then let the ramen sit for a minute to cool down a little, and the result was this:
The broth is a little rich and could be a little diluted. The chashu pork is terrific. I did think that there should be more noodles to fill me up. If you added more noodles and toppings such as fresh green onions, bean sprouts, seaweed and a hard boiled egg, this would be a really, really good bowl of ramen for a home cooked meal. I’ll have to try that with the other serving.
Conclusion: I recommend!
Now if I could only find a similar frozen meal for pho!
