Ramen debate

It's not easy to make a good bowl of Ramen at home.
Since most ramen shops make hundreds of bowls a day, what makes it good is the mass production and assembly line methodology of cooking the bowls of noodles.

(left pic : friend's bowl of ramen, right pic : setagaya's ramen)












I was invited to a friend's house for ramen the other day and it was disappointingly bland.
The flavor of the broth was weak. The noodles were over cooked, and the toppings were not seasoned well.
It was clear to me that if she was cooking for 300, instead of 20, the results would have easily been better.

Here is the reasoning. When you cook for 300, it's clearly an assembly line mentality. You have all your ingredients cooked and portioned out. Instead of "a la minute".
You have your timing down and each station will be manned by someone who completely understands what he or she has to do in order to get that bowl of noodles out to the customer ASAP. No mistakes.

Consistency couldn't be more important.

This was not the case the other night. All 3 bowls of ramen shared amongst the guests had different noodle textures. The broth was weak and had no fat. Apparently, all the oils or fat from the pork was skimmed out... making for a boring bowl of noodles. The toppings would have been good on their own, but they totally didn't belong in the bowl. It was missing Harmony. Overall, a D.

So to counter this bad experience, I went to Setagaya Ramen a few days ago and ordered their famous Shio Ramen. I saw the chef time the cooking of the noodles. 1 minute 20 seconds in the pot of vigorously boiling water. He took it out, rung it, and placed it in the bowl with the hot broth and it cooked another 40 seconds while he plated the toppings and served immediately.
The toppings were great and the broth had some character to it. Overall, a B+.

Things you look for in a good bowl of ramen :
1- Hot (Temperature Hot)
2- Well fortified Broth (gotta have depth)
3a- Al Dente Noodles (gotta have bite to them)
3b- Straight or Curl Noodles
3c- Same Noodle thickness or various strains of thick and thin noodles
4a- Toppings (medley)
4b- Chashuu (roasted pork belly slices)
4c- Tamago (seasoned hard boiled egg or poached egg)
4d- Menma (seasoned bamboo shoots)
4e- Scallion (julienned)
5- Oils (must have a pockets of flavor oils floating on the top)
6- Nori or seaweed (goes well with the backbone of dashi broth)