“For some reason, it was among the books that mother bought. She handed it over to Mother Lu and, well, this is the result,” Quun elaborated as she continued setting up the neighboring stall. It was among the books that Leen had bought?
Back on Earth, Linze and Leen both bought books like crazy, no matter what language they were in. It was easy for me to pull them out of [Storage] in bulk, since all I had to specify was “books we bought from Earth.” That also meant that I had no idea what they actually bought, though. One of them must have bought it by accident.
“I was positive that ramen was simply made with soy sauce, miso, and salt, but to think there was a whole other world of flavor out there!” Lu exclaimed, shaking her head forlornly, showing her great regret. Technically, I was the one that taught her that, and I hadn’t eaten anything other than your average ramen, so I hadn’t been able to teach her anything else...
There were already all kinds of ramen from tonkotsu, to niboshi, to chicken paitan—was it that easy to find a new flavor?
“I’m aware. Both cooking and the arts all begin with imitation, you see. It is through making all manner of ramen that I gain experience points. Plus, there is ramen that can’t be made on Earth that we can make here in this world!”
Hearing Lu say that only reminded me of the meat ramein made from troll flank we’d had in Heilong... Sure, you could make ramen here that you couldn’t on Earth because of the different meat available, but that didn’t mean it would taste good.
“I was thinking it would be nice to let the residents of the castle town have some if we make anything exceptional.”
“Explains why you have these stands, I guess.”
“For now, let’s start with this! Ryukotsu ramen where the broth is made with the marrow of crushed Dragon bones instead of pork bones!” Lu said as she pulled out a bowl of ramen and slammed it down on the counter.
Ryukotsu ramen! This is what I wanted to try!
“I thought the broth would be cloudy like tonkotsu ramen, but it actually looks clear...”
It even looked like shio ramen at a glance... Actually, there was barely any visible oil on the surface, so that wasn’t a good comparison. It just looked like hot water.
Doesn’t it look nicer than you’d think? It’s like someone took ramen, bamboo shoots, chashu pork, green onions, seaweed, and eggs and neatly layered them all in hot water.
“Tonkotsu ramen’s broth is a cloudy white because the collagen in the bone marrow becomes gelatin when it’s heated, which then encases the fat and mixes with the broth. However, since the collagen from Dragons doesn’t have that property, if you strain it carefully enough, you get this clear soup.”
“You know a lot about this.”
“It was all written in this magazine!” Lu stated as she proudly held out Ramen Kingdom.
Oh, so she’s just parroting the magazine’s words. It must have a lot of info about ramen in there.
“Give it a try!” Lu insisted.
“S-Sure...”
It wasn’t like I was succumbing to Lu’s persistence, but I reached for the ryukotsu ramen anyway. I really had wanted to try it, after all.
It smelled...like normal ramen, honestly.
First, the soup broth...
I used the spoon to take a scoop of the clear soup and put it in my mouth.
“...”
“Touya?”
Whoa! My focus got completely shot ’cause of how delicious that was! It’s amazing! The broth has so much umami condensed in it.
Just one more scoop... No, this is bad, I can’t stop.
I’d end up drinking all the soup before even getting to the ramen at this rate.
Eat the noodles, Touya. Eat the noodles.
I slurped them up, unable to resist letting out a satisfied breath.
“It’s delicious. The soup so perfectly coats the noodles... I can’t get enough...”
Now for a bit of the chashu. Wait! This isn’t chashu pork? Is it chashu Dragon?!
Actually, maybe using chashu was inaccurate, since it wasn’t pork, but either way, it was absolutely delicious, and it suited this ramen perfectly, which...felt like stating the obvious. Of course Dragon meat would taste perfect with broth made from Dragon bones.
And then it occurred to me: this had to be expensive as hell to make, right? Probably no less than one million yen a bowl... It was so delicious that I couldn’t stop eating it, though. I kept mindlessly slurping away, and before I knew it, I’d finished it.
“That was insane...”
“I’m glad you liked it. It costs so much that it definitely is not something to be served to the common people. If you convert it, it costs around one hundred silver coins.”
Oof! That’s ten times what I expected! Ten million yen per bowl of ramen...!
I shouldn’t be surprised. Dragon bones were a valuable material used to forge both weapons and armor. Naturally, they came with a ridiculous price tag. Crushing them was tantamount to grinding their value down to dust.
The only part the soup needed was the marrow, so you might have still been able to do something with the crushed bones, but it was undeniable that even then, the price would be so high that commoners wouldn’t stand a chance of trying it.
“And so, here’s a ryukotsu ramen using Wyvern as a substitute!”
This time it was Arcia who slammed a bowl of ramen down on the counter. Unlike the ramen I’d just had, this soup was a little thicker, but it only had as much color as shio ramen, and not as white as tonkotsu.
“Because Wyvern meat has more off-flavors, I used curly noodles instead. These don’t absorb much of the soup the way straight noodles do, so it should prevent it from tasting too strange.”
“They don’t absorb them as well?”
I’d always thought curly noodles would grab the soup easier.