Ramen for vegetarians

It’s a vegetarian’s worst nightmare: a dish so meat-injected, it more closely resembles melted pig in a bowl. But for a brief period each year, hardened herbivores in Tokyo are given a ramen that they can call their own. Since 2006, the Kagetsu Arashi noodle chain has welcomed the arrival of spring by launching a limited-edition vegetarian ramen, dubbed Nana (from the kanji for vegetable, na). The exact recipe varies each time, but the basic concept remains the same: as the tagline puts it, ‘No pork. No chicken. No fish. Only vegetable.’

This year’s Vege Ramen, which went on general sale on March 7 and will be available until May, is billed as a group effort. While Kagetsu Ramen teamed up with former Pink Lady vocalist Mie to produce the dish in 2011, the latest rendition comes courtesy of a quartet of culinary experts including ‘veggy ramen sommelier’ Saori Kira and Tomoko Miyake, whose qualifications literally translate as ‘celebrity who eats a lot of ramen’. Ahem.

Quite what each of these ladies brought to the (kitchen) table isn’t entirely clear, as the resulting dish doesn’t deviate a whole lot from the one that we slurped down at Kagetsu Ramen last spring. The broth is perhaps a little more robust this time around and they’ve gone easier on the yuzu peel, but the other basic elements are virtually unchanged. Once again, the bowl comes crowned with a salad-esque topping of fresh coriander, spring onion, nameko mushrooms, tomato, radish, grated daikon and fried lotus root, while the greenish noodles are made from spirulina, a kind of microalgae that's more commonly used in nutritional supplements.

It’s everything real ramen isn’t: healthy, refreshing, and unlikely to fill you up. In a savvy marketing move, Kagetsu Arashi have pitched the dish more at diet-conscious female diners than at vegetarians (who comprise a piddlingly small demographic in Japan, after all). Posters proclaim that a serving of Vege Ramen tots up to just 411 calories, soup included, while a side order of three, garlic-heavy vegetarian gyoza will only add another 211 kcal to the total. Maybe that's why Time Out's female accomplice finishes the meal by proclaiming that she could happily eat another bowl of ramen. Preferably a meaty one this time.

Kagetsu Arashi will be serving its Vege Ramen at branches throughout Tokyo until May