Project Food Blog Challenge #5: Vote it Up, Friends and Readers!

It's a new week and a new challenge to vote for!

I'm just happy to be here right now. Thank you for voting.

This week I am going to share some pics from my Summer of Ramen Obsession. What's great about a ramen obsession is a bowl of ramen is cheap...one can eat ramen often, obsessively so, and not even feel a dent in the wallet.

My first exposure to ramen in my life (not a single bowl of ramen passed my lips on my trip to Tokyo, I now know I missed some serious ramenpportunity) was at the Yatai pop-up at Breadbar one cold day, mid-summer 2010. One bowl of gourmet ramen: $13. With oxtail. OH!

Not long after Yatai, D took me to Daikokuya at 1:30 am. Daikokuya is the preeminent ramen house in all of California.  I recently met the man who supplies them their noodles. Apparently they sell more bowls of ramen per week than anyone else.  I must admit, despite the deliciousness in my bowl and happiness in my stomach, I was a little disappointed when the broth from my leftover ramen wasn't jelly the next morning. This bowl was $8.50, more than I could eat in a sitting.

This was my first stab at homemade ramen. Again, not pricey.  I still have all the non-perishable ingredients therefore can whip up a batch of homemade fast-food style ramen anytime on the fly. I used this recipe from Rasa Malaysia. Fast and easy, super delicious happy hour, but not an authentic broth.  (I poached instead of boiled the eggs).

A few weeks later I attempted and executed wonderfully Momofuku ramen broth. Not having the Momofuku cookbook (Christmas is coming, D), I let the FoodHoe Files be my guide. A seriously involved recipe, what with the roasting of the pork bones. There are also several stages to cooking this ramen, one includes whole chicken parts, one with an entire pound of bacon and one for 6+ hours with said roasted bones. Epic.broth.

Eat some ramen.