Why drink cola with your noodles when you can eat it instead?

From piranhas to berries and even mint chocolate tapioca, we’ve seen ramen combined with a lot of weird and wonderful things over the years, but now we’re bracing ourselves for something we didn’t see coming: cola tsukemen.

Tsukemen is like a cold, deconstructed version of ramen that puts the noodles and toppings on one plate and a dipping sauce on the other. While the noodles are usually served cold or at room temperature, the sauce can be either hot or cold, and it delivers much more of an intense flavour hit to the taste buds than the broth in regular hot ramen as it’s usually much more concentrated in flavour.

The new cola tsukemen is a tie-up collaboration between popular Japanese ramen chain Menya Musashi and Iyoshi Cola, dubbed “the world’s first specialty craft cola store and manufacturer”, which opened in Tokyo in July 2018.

▼ Menya Musashi

▼ Iyoshi Cola

▼ Iyoshi Cola sells its drinks in resealable bags, which makes them look like packs of soup.

Cola Kobayashi, who founded the company, is an unabashed “cola-maniac” who’s traveled around the world trying new varieties and flavours. With his father working in Chinese holistic medicine, Kobayashi draws on both modern and ancient techniques to create a premium cola that’s a step above your ordinary store-bought Coke.

Kobayashi prepares the secret base in a small-scale cola workshop using all-natural ingredients such as citrus, spices, and kola nuts.

The combination of more than 15 kinds of spices and citrus fruits in Iyoshi Cola is said to be an exquisite match for Menya Musashi’s salty tsukemen, creating a fragrant and appetising dish.

The noodles also come served with a spicy pulled pork topping and a soft-boiled egg marinated in cola instead of soy sauce.

The Craft Cola Tsukemen will be sold exclusively at the Shibuya Menya Musashi Bukotsu Gaiden branch of the ramen chain, and will be limited to 15 servings a day.

The limited-edition tsukemen will retail for 1,200 yen (US$10.99) and will only be available from 20 March to 5 April.

Restaurant information

Shibuya Menya Musashi Bukotsu Gaiden / 渋谷 麺屋武蔵 武骨外伝

Address: Tokyo-to Shibuya-ku, 2-8-5 Dogenzaka

東京都渋谷区道玄坂2-8-5

Open: 11:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m. every day

Website

Source, images: PR Times

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