Ramen Pop-up 101 - Your First Pop-up
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For my day job, I design utilities, roadways, almost anything outside of a building. It is very important for day to day life, but it is something people don’t often appreciate. No one thanks the engineer for the pipes that sends clean drinking water to your house or the planning that prevents water from flooding buildings. Making ramen however is a whole nother story. When serving a guest ramen in person, you can interact with them and make a personal connection. As you place a bowl in front of them, you can see the way their eyes light up. Being able to see someone smile as a direct result of your labor is one of the most fulfilling experiences that you can have.
For any of those ramen heads out there who have made countless bowls at home, there is a point where you want to test your mettle and serve your ramen to others. There are a lot of amazing people out there who started popups at home, with some even starting their own restaurant such as Neighborhood Ramen. If you have that itch to have your own popup, know that it is hard work. But if you have the will there is a way.
Here is a crash course in starting your own popup.
Start Small, Start Simple
For your very first popup, limit the size to 5-10 guests. If you are a home cook with no restaurant experience, you do not want to jump into an event with 50-100+ covers. Small scale popups can be hosted out of the comfort of your own home, a space that you are most familiar with. No need to worry about permits, event space, or rush hour crowds. You are essentially hosting a party at your house.
I wish I followed this bit of advice for my first popup, but it was a go big or go home situation where I was invited to do a popup at Ramen Lab in NYC. I jumped into the fire for my first popup with Mike Satinover at Ramen Lab which you can read more about it in this blog post. It can be done, but I do not suggest it. We essentially muscled our way through that weeklong stint with enormous amount of planning and will power.
Developing your Pop-up Game Plan
Pick a recipe that you are satisfied with and enjoy. You will be serving ramen to someone other than yourself, so you want to make sure that you put a bowl that you are proud of in front of them.
Scale up your recipe. Write out your ingredients, putting it in a spreadsheet is better. This will help you scale your quantities and make sure you have plenty of ramen. I suggest making 10-20% more than what you are planning for large popups or at the bare minimum, 3 additional servings for smaller popups. You need to account making a bowl for yourself, staff/helpers, and have extra in case you have screw ups or unexpected guests.
Write a bunch of lists and a schedule.
Supplies:
2 large pots - One for keeping your broth warm and one to boil noodles
Strainer for noodles. I would get noodle strainer baskets if you can, that way you can keep servings separate to quickly serve guests.
Strainer for soup - While you can strain your soup it noodle baskets, having a large strainer is more convenient to strain your broth. If you have large batches I suggest getting a china cap strainer.
Spoons, Chopsticks, Utensils - It is given that your guests will need chopsticks, spoons, and occasionally forks to enjoy the ramen. As the chef, you will need plenty of spoons for all of your ingredients. I use chopsticks to grab large solid ingredients like chashu. Spoons are great for grabbing eggs and finely chopped items. You can also use what God gave you and use your hands, but you don’t want to have to wash your hands in between serving bowls. Your hands can guide ingredients into a bowl and you can wipe it on a towel. Just don’t lick your fingers and wash hands often.
Ladles - You want to make sure your bowls are consistent in taste. My recipes usually use 300 mL of soup, 30 or 45 mL of tare, and about 15 mL of oil. I have ladles of each size which allows me to quickly measure exact amounts. Each time you measure something, there is an error associated with it. For example if you measure 300 mL soup with a 300 mL ladle, you may be off by 5 mL. If you use a 100 mL ladle and are off by 5 grams each time, you will end up with a 15 mL difference by the time you measure 300 mL.
Ramen Bowls - It is perfectly find to use whatever large bowls you have on hand. But if you can get your hands on a ramen bowls, you will instantly upgrade your plating game.
Ingredients:
Soup – Are you going to be doing this the day before? Make sure you can chill the broth quickly to avoid any off flavors. If you are going to make it the day of, make sure you start early enough and you have enough time to work on any day of items. You want to have your soup ready at least an hour before service.
Noodles – Are you going to be making these? Make sure you give them 1-2 days to rest. If they are stored in the fridge, leave them out several hours before service, so they have time to temper which will help with even cooking.
Tare and Aroma Oil – These items can be done days in advanced. Do this in advanced so you do not have to worry about it the day of.
Toppings – Eggs should be done 1-2 days before so you have time to marinate it evenly. Other toppings can be done in advance or the day of. If you made them ahead of time, how will you reheat toppings?
Schedules:
If you have a day job or go to school, you need to plan this ramen side hustle around your schedule. Figure out what things needs to be done days ahead and what can be done the day of. Always give yourself more time than you think you need because you will need every extra second. Typical considerations:
Eggs typically need 2-3 days to marinate. Get this done early so you don’t have to worry about it.
Give your noodles time to reach room temperature. If they are frozen, put them in the fridge two days before. The day of your event, I would take them out of the fridge and leave them on the counter to temper for 2 to 4 hours. This will allow you to separate the noodles into individual strands for even cooking. If you are making your own noodles, you want to give them plenty of time to rest so make them days in advanced.
I like to make my soup the day before for piece of mind. If you do this, chill it quickly and put it in your fridge. Your fridge is probably super crowded with ingredients which reduces the circulation inside and your fridges cooling power. You will want to lower the temperature to around 80 F before sticking in the fridge. This will allow the broth to cool quickly enough in the fridge to get it out of the danger zone in which bacteria would like to grow. I have learned the hard way and ended up with some funky broth in the past.
One of the most important thing is to give yourself time to make a test bowl. This will let you spot check your setup. You will want to ask yourself these questions: Did you take every ingredient out? Do you have enough serving spoons for the ingredients? Is the noodle timing off? Is the bowl hot enough? Is there something wrong with how I plated the bowl? Does the bowl taste how it should? Give yourself time to make adjustments if needed.
Mise en place
Think about the work flow. All toppings should be done by the time your guests arrive. You do not want to have to cut green onions to order. How many people will be helping to assemble? Lay out your ingredients in the order that you will be plating.
Service
I am repeating this again because it is very important. Always make a bowl before you serve your guests. I initially had the chef eats last mentality, but it is because you are serving guests that you want to eat first to make sure everything is how it should be.
Heat your bowls. Ramen is supposed to be hot. Cold bowls will sap the heat away from your broth. I like to use the oven set at around 160 F to heat all the bowls at once. You can also pour hot water from your noodle boiling pot on top for 30 seconds. This is not that viable for people with weak stoves as you will need to reheat the water back up if you pour the water from your bowl back into the pot. If you are able to balance your bowls on top of the noodle strainer, you can steam the bowls which is a great method if you are able to.
Make it clear that guests are supposed to eat ramen as soon as they receive their bowl. If they waited for the remaining guests to get their bowls, their bowl will be suboptimal. The soup will become luke warm, the noodles will get soggy.
Have fun, this is your event.
