Filipino beer-Ramen pairing good for the rainy days

Every rainy season, the cuddle weather makes one crave for something piping hot like a bowl of Ramen, or for “the cold never bothered me anyway,” a glass (or several bottles) of ice-cold beer.

But why choose if you could have the best of both worlds, right?

That is why just like yesterday, when the Philippines and Japan commemorated a day of friendship, so did Filipino beverage company San Miguel Beer and Japanese restaurant chain Ramen Ron recently collaborated by pairing the Filipino brand’s different beers together with the Japanese restaurant’s famous Ramen flavors.

At a recent Ramen and beer pairing in the restaurant’s Rockwell flagship branch, Ramen master chef Tamura Hiroyuki, through Ramen Ron representatives, and brew master Alan Sienes explained the rationale behind every dish and beer team-up.

A bowl of Aburasoba is both hefty in taste and in body. This “soupless” Ramen serves thick noodles dressed with tare sauce and topped with pork chashu cubes, spring onions, bamboo shoots, finished with shredded nori and sesame seeds. The dish is paired with Super Dry, which chases down the rich taste with clean and crisp mouthfeel and hoppy aroma.

The Ramen’s garlic and umami taste “is a pleasant mix” with the Super Dry because the beer is made up of “special kind of herbs” or 100 percent aroma herbs that give it a “pleasant” bitterness, said Sienes.

A serving of Seafood Ramen takes the flavors of the sea to the table. This is a bowl of noodles in the restaurant’s signature Ukokkei “silky fowl” broth on a miso-base topped with an assortment of seafood ingredients, including shrimp, squid, kani crab sticks and clams with vegetables and nori. A feast for the eyes and for the senses, this dish is best paired with Premium All-Malt because of its distinct, full-flavored, slightly sweet taste.

The shrimp, clam and squid in the dish is complimented well by Premium All-Malt, said Sienes: “You can you can taste the maltiness… There’s some sweetness because it’s lighter. The taste impression and the bitterness is a good balance…”

Packed with umami, Tantanmen is soulful through and through, with its thick noodles on broth loaded with sesame, chili, miso and ground pork topped with spring onions. The exciting flavors of Tantanmen pairs very well with Cerveza Negra and its hints of caramel, coffee and chocolate.

“The dish is complex, rich and the beer appears to also be complex… (The beer) has coffee notes, so that balances well with the dish,” Sienes noted.

Straightforward yet complex, the Ukokkei Shio-Mansi Chashu Ramen is a surprising treat. Featuring Ramen noodles on the restaurant’s signature “silky fowl” broth on a salt and calamansi-base with special thick-cut chashu topped with bamboo shoots, mizuna greens and calamansi jelly. The dish pairs perfectly with Cerveza Blanca and its harmonious balance of spicy, smoky and fruity flavors.

This Ramen is usually flavored with lemon, but instead, calamansi is used to give it a Filipino slant.

The calamansi’s sourness is “a great fusion with the orange peel-like taste of the Cerveza Blanca,” said Sienes.

“Cerveza Blanca is a very neatly complex aroma. It’s like spicy, smoky, citrusy. Sometimes, you can sense a hint of citrus and other notes… And among the beers that we have, it has a cloudy appearance and a favorite of many people it’s a rising beer of the time.”

To fully appreciate the beer and Ramen pairing, he suggested to “to pour beer properly.”

“The first thing is of course, to smell the glass so that we will have a clean glass and then, with the beer in right temperature, we pour it (in the glass) sideways slowly because you’re trying to preserve the foam so that the foam will be fine and then slowly, build it up and then control the flow of the beer so that you can develop the fine foam so that the head will be creamy…” he instructed.

The beer and Ramen pairing could be capped off with vanilla ice cream drizzled with chocolate and salted caramel – and anything with chocolate, even dessert, can be paired with Cerveza Negra.

These pairings are available at the restaurant’s Rockwell and Bonifacio Global City branches from ongoing until 30 September.

Lastly, as in any Ramen and alcoholic drink pairing, may it be beer or sake, do not forget to say “Cheers!” Kanpai!