Chicken’s the Word as Ippudo Caters to Jakarta’s Love for Ramen
Walking into ramen restaurant Ippudo's first ever outlet in Indonesia at the Pacific Place mall in South Jakarta, you notice a sign promoting not just the latest additions to its world-famous lineup of ramen bowls, but also an emphasis on the different and special utensils used for its newest creations.
At first glance, this chunk of the promotional banner may seem odd. But a closer look at the menu and it becomes clear why it’s there.
Ippudo has been making waves outside Japan for several years now, with long lines of customers at its New York and London outlets proving just how much word about its bowls of ramen have gone around among casual Western diners. The chain restaurant now has outlets in Australia, China, Singapore and Malaysia.
Ippudo’s arrival in Jakarta last year received a similarly warm welcome, as attested to by the now familiar long lines of curious customers during the first few months after its opening. But its presence nonetheless ignored a large chunk of the city’s Muslim foodies, who find themselves unable to sample Ippudo’s world-famous bowls of pork ramen.
Alas, while many customers willingly fall in line in front of the restaurant at even the most demanding hours for one’s belly, many others must seek out other halal ramen options.
Responding to the clamoring demand and an increasingly established foothold in Jakarta’s growing appetite for ramen, Ippudo launched toward the end of May the chain’s first ramen made with chicken broth, officially marking Indonesia as an important market in its global operations.
“It’s very, very obvious that Indonesia is a very potential market [...] so we realize that there's a demand for that and so Ippudo would like to extend their ability to make good ramen over to the Muslim community,” the company said.
But putting together its first chicken ramen recipe was no easy feat, and required a long process of trial and error by ramen experts within the company who took notes of the tiniest change in measurements for each of the ingredients used.
The result is its chicken shoyu ramen, made with a broth that is different from the typically creamier chicken ramen dishes found in other restaurants. It is clear, almost understated, and rich with complimenting flavors coming especially from the chashu chicken pieces it is served with.
Its spicier counterpart, the spicy chicken ramen, also stands out thanks to Ippudo's homemade sambal, or chili sauce, a taste that would fare well with the Indonesian palette thanks to hints of local homemade sambal typically found in more local or traditional restaurants, though amplified by the combination of not just one but at least four different types of chili.
“This sambal is created especially for the spicy chicken ramen bowl. If you ordered the regular chicken ramen, you’ll be served chili flakes should you need to spice things up, but not this particular sambal,” says Ippudo Indonesia marketing manager Amanda Sihombing.
Part of the process of creating the right bowl of chicken ramen was also to create the right noodles to go with the broth, and for this, Ippudo Asia and Oceania research and quality head Hideki Miyazaki says the noodles served with the chicken ramen are different from the ones served in Ippudo’s bowls of pork ramen.
“This is 100 percent made especially for the chicken ramen. In Ippudo, different noodles are matched with a different kind of soup. You will see different textures, some curlier, others thinner,” he says.
“In the original tonkotsu ramen, the water content is a bit less ... giving it a bit more chewiness. The shoyu ramen, because the broth is a little bit more clear, the noodles are slightly thicker, and if you bite on it, there’s a little bit more softness to it. Water content is a little bit higher in the noodles for the chicken ramen.”
But one crucial aspect of serving chicken ramen to a Muslim-majority community lies in the cooking process itself, wherein Ippudo had to make sure that the creation of this dish was conducted separately from where its pork ramen was cooked, in order to uphold the halal process for its customers.
“We didn’t want to simply create a chicken ramen. We know that although we are not a halal restaurant, we wanted to make sure that we serve this properly,” Amanda says.
“We separated the kitchen where the chicken ramen is made, and we also use a different set of utensils. We have special bowls that we use to serve the chicken ramen.”
While customers from all religious backgrounds will now be able to get a taste of the Japanese restaurant’s famed noodles, customers will also be happy to find a plethora of tasty Japanese cuisine to choose from in its menu. Ippudo’s selection of buns is an easy crowd pleaser, with soft and slightly sweet buns to go with customer’s choice of filling: pork, chicken or shrimp. On the sushi front, Ippudo’s salmon roll is served with a fresh, creamy finish that more than makes up for its limited sushi selection.
“In Japan, Ippudo is well known for just the ramen specialty,” Hideki says.
“But for our overseas market, they realized that the contents [of the menu] have to change, hence we came up with the appetizers. The menu that we make are all uniquely made from our research and development team ... so the sushi you eat are uniquely Ippudo – you will not see them serving the same thing in other restaurants.”
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