Ramen Party Tidbit

Whenever I make ramen, I make sure to invite friends over for a ramen party. (cooking ramen takes all day, might as well make an event out of it!)

I've found that expediting loads of ramen bowls at once is challenging in a home kitchen. Especially when plating needs to happen. Sometimes I'll have 6 people over, and they should all get ramen at the same time. This is particularly challenging in my kitchen, where I can only cook two orders of noodles at a time. This is my usual setup:

Noodle baskets and all, that's the most I can cook.

This means I can really only do two orders at the same time. If noodles and broth take 2 minutes a bowl to cook, that's an extra 4 minutes of noodles getting soggy. This is further impacted by having to plate. It's tough to top, set up new bowls, and cook noodles all at once.

So I've come up with a few strategies that mitigate this.

1. Add tare to as many bowls in advance as possible. 
2. Add your stock to all bowls if possible.
3. Cook and drain noodles quickly, and send the now filled bowls to the table. 
4. Allow your guests to top the bowls themselves. Preslice your chashu, eggs, and other toppings, and bring everything out on a platter or containers to let guests pick what they want. This saves a ton of time and your guests can pick how much they like.  

The result is nice! When I did this last week we found that the guests liked topping the dishes themselves. Some wanted two eggs. Some wanted none, some wanted just one slice of pork. Here's a photo of the madness. 

Classic Miso... topped with pork belly, green onion strips, beansprouts, and a half cooked egg in the back.

By the time the first people are done topping, the remaining bowls should be out and ready for the guests. 

It also means I don't have to yell at people to eat while it's hot, haha. 

Will definitely be doing this in the future.

Fun little tidbit I think. Love when things turn out successfully.