Asia Will Drive Coca-Cola's Growth

AP Interview: Asia Will Be Biggest Driver of Growth for Coca-Cola, CEO Says SINGAPORE (AP) -- Asia will be the biggest driver of Coca-Cola's growth over the next 10 years, the head of the world's biggest beverage company said Sunday, adding that the company had lost out by not investing enough in the region in the past.

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"Asia is at the core," Neville Isdell, the chairman and chief executive of the Atlanta, Georgia-based Coca-Cola Co., said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"Because we haven't been making sufficient investments, we have underperformed the opportunities that are present in Asia," he said in Singapore on the sidelines of the two-day World Economic Forum on East Asia conference, which brought together some of the world's most influential industry leaders.

Isdell's comments come on the heels of Coca-Cola's upbeat financial results for the first quarter of 2007, when its profits jumped 14 percent.

The company said its worldwide unit-case volume sales grew 6 percent -- the highest rate since 2002.

Isdell said Coca-Cola has invested more than $1 billion over the last 12 months in Asia, particularly in the Philippines, China, India and Indonesia.

"There is no question that the biggest driver of our growth over this century, and over the next 10 years, is Asia. It's a very simple equation. It's where people are, and it's where the economic growth is, and it's clearly where we are focused," Isdell said.

"If you are not a major player in Asia you will not be a successful global company," he said.

The company's market share in Asia's non-alcoholic, ready-to-drink beverage market is currently "in the teens" and will become much higher in the next five years, Isdell said, without elaborating.

"We believe we will be the engine of growth for the industry," he said.

In a wide-ranging interview, Isdell talked about the acquisition strategy of Coca-Cola, which purchased Vitaminwater maker Glaceau earlier this month for $4.1 billion. He said Vitaminwater would be available in Asia in the next few years.

He refused to say if Coca-Cola is thinking of buying Scottish mineral water maker Highland Spring, which some analysts have valued at $1 billion.

"We know Highland Spring is certainly not worth a billion, and certainly not worth half a billion," said Isdell.

But "we look at everything that is out there," he said, adding that acquisition will be a core strategy of Coca-Cola's expansion.

"We believe if we want to get to a critical mass in a hurry, we will go the acquisition route. The way we phrase it is, 'build-buy equation all the time.'"

Isdell acknowledged that the soft drinks industry in India has been set back by five years due to recent allegations that water used in soft drinks was contaminated with pesticide. Tests later showed the allegations to be unfounded.

"But today we believe we have recovered," Isdell said, noting that Coca-Cola registered a double-digit growth in India in the first quarter.

Isdell also spoke about Coca-Cola's corporate social responsibility, saying it is making efforts to ensure conservation of water, the basic ingredient of their product.

Coca-Cola has 275 rain-harvesting projects in India, and another 25 will be started this year, he said.

Creating a modern food zone

As Thailand aims to become the "Kitchen of the World", the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER) master plan will have a willing market for its goal of turning our northern states into a premier food production centre for the Southeast Asian region.

The master plan targets to increase agricultural exports for the northern region to RM48.1 billion from RM32 billion per annum in 2005 and the average farmers' income to above RM1,500 per month from less than RM500 by 2012, in line with its objectives of poverty eradication and economic growth.

According to statistics recently released by the National Productivity Council in the 2006 Productivity Report, it states that the food processing sector accounted for only 3% or over RM17 billion of Malaysia's RM588.9 billion total manufacturing output last year.

This pales in comparison to Thailand, which is the fifth largest exporter of food products worldwide, with its food export expected to grow by 10.3% to a total of 607.1 billion baht (RM69.24 billion) this year.

One reason identified for the poor performance is that Malaysia has not fully leveraged or capitalised on the fact that it has one of the most bio-diverse ecosystems in the world. However, this is poised to change once the initiatives targeted to boost the agriculture industry are set into motion.

Achieving food security
Food security has always been a national policy objective for the country since the 1950s, but we have not been successful in reaching self-sufficiency goals.

For instance, self-sufficiency ratios of rice stood at 72.4% last year. Malaysia is also faced with a widening food trade deficit, whereby the RM7.4 billion deficit in 2005 is expected to jump more than 30% to RM11 billion by 2010.

At present, despite food export performance having doubled over the last decade, the country is still a net importer of food products with annual imports of RM18 billion as of last year.

The deficit is in part due to inefficient agricultural methods, resulting in paddy yields of between three and five tonnes per hectare of land, compared to the regional benchmark of eight tonnes per hectare.

As a result, we are still reliant on imports from countries like Vietnam and Thailand to meet the needs of our domestic market. In fact, Malaysia alone accounts for 9% of Vietnam's rice exports in 2006.

This dependence on international markets is risky due to the instability of the global rice market and negative repercussions of the liberalisation of the agricultural trade from free trade agreements.

Hence, the NCER initiatives will play an integral role in addressing these problems, principally by introducing modern agriculture methods, expanding agro-based processing activities, introducing new crops and facilitating the use of technology and best practices.

Effecting a mindset change
Implementation of the NCER master plan will not be without its challenges. While implementation efficacy is vital to its success, observers point out that nothing less than a paradigm shift among the people is needed to help it take off.

One of the biggest hurdles that the NCER initiatives will face is the issue of private land ownership, and how to educate a rural society that holds strongly to tradition on the benefits of new technologies and commercial farming.

To lessen the resistance to change, landowners will not be asked to sell their land, but instead will be encouraged to appoint a professional company to manage their land in return for a fixed monthly salary and profit-sharing from the produce.

Much like what's already being done in other countries, these professional agriculture companies will then be tasked to negotiate long-term contracts with major supermarket chains for the supply of agriculture produce, which will result in better income for the farming community.

Diversifying the agriculture business
In addition to introducing best practices and technologies to achieve better productivity, there are also plans to promote the growth of new crops such as climatic fruits, corn, potatoes and herbs.

As an alternative agriculture downstream sector, biotechnology has enabled the use of agriculture produce for higher value non-food purposes such as corn for biofuel and bioplastics; and potatoes for biodegradable packaging.

Incentives will also be put into place to encourage farmers to become entrepreneurs for food-based downstream products to create an additional income stream from the commercial sale of items like canned foods and preserves.

To jump-start some of these initiatives, start-up grants and RM100 million in venture capital will be made available to facilitate 'agri-preneurship', while soft loans will also be given out for purchase of equipment and key inputs.

Augmenting these measures, fiscal incentives — like pioneer status and investment tax allowances — are also planned to encourage and attract large corporations to partner the local community in commercial scale farming.

Improving infrastructure and education
Walking the talk, Sime Darby Bhd, the architect of the master plan, is investing in a seed academy that will be based in Perlis.

The research facility will focus on producing seeds of varieties with higher yields, that are pest resistant and have better suitability to local soil.

On top of seed research, the facility will also conduct research on downstream areas and bio-prospecting to identify new high value uses for agriculture produce.

Hand in hand with this research based push, after years of having to make do with below par infrastructure, the government intends to fund the implementation of better water management system and irrigation practices.

This is a key initiative as improved irrigation systems are expected to increase paddy yield per hectare of land as it will eliminate the problems that some farmers face who rely on the goodwill of their neighbours for access to water.

It is important to note that NCER, in the quest to raise living standards and quality of farming, will not be trampling on the land.

Much of the land in the NCER remains unused or under-utilised, with 51.9% of it now being gazetted as environmentally sensitive areas.

Only 3,500 hectares is earmarked to be re-designated for agricultural usage under the master plan. Obviously the focus is on quality and production excellence.

Hakka food combines the best of South Asian and Indian cooking

Welcome to a new column by Toronto resident Rakshande Italia called Desi Dialogues. Desi Dialogues is a bi-weekly, light-hearted column that delves into the lives of the 600,000 South Asians that call the GTA their home. The term desi is derived from an ancient Sanskrit language, which means countrymen, and refers to people from the Indian subcontinent – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
The column will discuss, debate, dissect and explore interesting stories about this vibrant community and its people in all aspects of their lives - be it their social and cultural lives or their quest for education. It will also explore their unique health practices such as yoga or the delicious foods these communities bring to Toronto. No aspect is too small to discuss at Desi Dialogues, and we hope that the column will not only talk to our ethnic communities but will also entertain our mainstream readers wishing to get a fresh look at this important community - predicted to be the largest ethnic group here by 2017, according to Statistics Canada.
We would love to hear what you have to say. Please send your feedback to rakshande.italia@gmail.com

My husband Ronnie says I must have been a “Chinese rice farmer or positively, 100 per cent, a Chinese restaurant owner,” in my previous birth. When I say, “That’s not true,” he immediately poses the question I hate to answer: “How else can you explain the way you go out of your way seeking Chinese food?
Frankly, I don’t have any answer to that. Except to blame my mother, who craved it when she was pregnant with me, eating only Chinese food for nine long months, as the spicy cuisine we South Asians savour wasn’t on her menu then.
Ronnie, unfortunately, had to see me experiencing similar Chinese cravings during my own pregnancy. The only difference was, I’d crave masala noodles – spicy noodles made in India for South Asian palates. Every day, I’d eat at least two of them, which hubby dutifully made for me, afraid he was supposed to “give in” during those precarious, hormone-filled times.
But my dad wasn’t so lucky. The instant-noodles culture wasn’t around 35 years ago, so every night, after my mom closed her clinic, poor dad would drive his doctor wife 40 kilometres to a quaint Chinese joint where she’d savour the shark fin soup made by Uncle Kong. (I always wondered how that soup didn’t make her feel queasy.)
My father would religiously order his orange and red spicy, saucy noodles, not authentic Chinese, but which falls under a South Asian classification, colloquially referred to as Indian Chinese, and better known in Toronto as Hakka Chinese.
Hakka cuisine has evolved over centuries, as the Hakka community, from China’s Canton province, migrated to India and cleverly innovated according to South Asians’ spicy palate. Once again, as 700,000 South Asians flood Toronto, Hakka joints that cater to this huge influx have grown exponentially, springing up in places such as Scarborough, on the Danforth and Toronto’s suburban neighbourhoods.
If you step into one of these restaurants, you can experience an interesting mix-and-match cuisine of spicy Indian ingredients such as green chilies, coriander leaves, red chili powder, expertly blended with tangy Chinese sauces, all stir-fried in one big wok to make a unique dish that’s partly Indian and partly Chinese.
Don’t ask me what that means. Suffice to say that the fusion style is so popular that it even finds a place in books and Internet sites as “Indian cuisine”.
Also, don’t expect to bask in a typical Chinese ambience, either through quaint Chinese musical chimes or Chinese lanterns. The chances are you’d be flooded with Bollywood music instead. In fact, some Chinese chefs even speak the Indian Hindi language, while their restaurant menus feature Indian starters such as pakoras (spicy meat\vegetable meatballs) and desserts such as kulfi (Indian ice cream).
And every Hakka restaurant worth its salt will sport a Manchurian chicken or the chili chicken on its menu. A hot favourite with South Asians, and prized possession for hotel owners, these recipes are ferociously guarded, with even junior chefs not being privy to its secret ingredients.
You see, with increased competition, poaching of good chefs has become common practice, and each restaurant wants to draw in crowds based on its own variation of these favourite dishes.
One last reminder: Don’t ask the chefs to “make it spicy” if you’ve never eaten it before. As one Hakka restaurant owner says, “A white man’s version of spicy is very different from a South Asian asking for the same.”
As for my mother, her Chinese cravings subsidized, but not her love for this food. Blame Uncle Kong, the chef whose restaurant we frequented, and who by then had become mom’s patient, frequenting our house – big wok in hand, drumming up some excellent Chinese meals.
Four years ago, my mom visited Toronto. After staying for five months and exhausting all the Canadian foods, she decided she couldn’t leave Toronto without savouring her Indian-Chinese.
So in -40 C, on a cold January night, just days before her back-to-India trip, we hunted down the first Hakka Chinese restaurant we could find and just ate – like pigs.
UP NEXT: Did you know that Toronto is home to almost 6,000 Zoroastrians, followers of the world’s oldest monotheistic religion, which has only 120,000 members left around the world? The spirited movement refuses to say it is dwindling. Interestingly, the GTA has the second largest concentration of Zoroastrians outside of India. As this tiny community celebrates its new year on Aug. 20, Desi Dialogues looks at this incredible community and its growing quest to retain an identity in Canada.

Western Food in Japan

In an orange shirt, green-plaid pants, and black-and-white bucks, Hirashika Koji is a Crayola splotch of color in the gray-suited McDonald's lunch crowd.

He dresses to stand out from the throng, but Japan's health experts would say the showbiz manager's looks are all too typical. He's a bit jowly, as he'll admit, and when he leans back in his chair, his shirt strains against a burgeoning little belly.

Japanese men like Mr. Koji have been packing on the pounds. Today the Health and Welfare Ministry says 1 in 3 males in their 30s is overweight. Whole police departments are dieting, and even Sumo wrestlers have been asked to stop dipping into the cookie jar quite so often.

For a nation weaned on grilled fish and white rice, this is unusual - Sumo aside, chubby Japanese men don't loom large in the national self-image. But wealth, post-World War II policy, and international influences have changed the way Japanese eat.

Along with rising crime and unemployment, male waistlines are a small but rapidly expanding sign of how Japan is becoming less a set of islands unto itself, and more like the world's other industrial nations.

After centuries of a refined, lean cuisine based on rice, soybeans, pickles, and fish, the Japanese have embraced Italian pastas, rich French sauces, and fiery Mexican tacos. Even small-town restaurants offer dishes such as curry rice (beef in a rich, not-so-spicy sauce) or hot cakes.

Japan has been assimilating Western food for centuries: ``Pan,'' the word for bread, was borrowed from Portuguese traders who arrived in the 16th century. But the influx of Western food has jumped dramatically in recent years.

The number of convenience stores, which stock Oreos, Ritz crackers, ice cream, potato chips, and the like, has quadrupled since 1985. And fast-food chains have proliferated, catering to those with a hankering for mayonnaise-topped pizza (a local specialty), fried chicken, or a hambaagaa, as burgers are known here.

McDonald's quick expansion is one measure of the appetite for fast food. In 1993 the US chain had 1,043 stores. By 1997, it had 2,439. This pleases Koji, the flashy dresser, who eats at the US chain about three times a week. ``It's cheap, it's fast, and I like the taste,'' he says, though he - and the Health Ministry - worry about how fatty some of the food is. ``Young people don't eat much tofu, seafood, or green vegetables anymore,'' the ministry frets in a report, adding that they don't exercise enough either. (Women, it notes, haven't gained much weight at all over the last few decades.) But men have become cause for concern. Seven prefectures, or states, have announced their men in blue are requiring increasingly larger uniforms.

The forces are taking this seriously. Some stations have installed body-fat scales. In southern Fukuoka prefecture, where almost half the officers were issued warnings, the officials organized weight-loss competitions. ``It turned out to be a success,'' says spokesman Kazuo Inoue, ``[but] we're still working on this.''

If young Japanese have forsaken tofu for teriyaki burgers, government policy bears some responsibility. After the war, food shortages and the large number of orphans led teachers to organize free lunches for students who had none. The Ministry of Education got involved, leading to school-lunch laws designed to promote the physical and mental development of Japan's children.

But the food - some of it made with wheat from US postwar aid programs - was very Western. Students ate omelets, hamburgers, or sandwiches. ``Because many Japanese adults grew up this way, they have no hesitation to feed their children the same way,'' says nutritionist Daisuke Futami, who teaches at a college outside Tokyo.

As Japan rebuilt after the war, its people were able to afford better quality food in greater quantities. Mr. Futami estimates that Japanese today eat five times the amount of meat and animal fat that they did in the 1940s. On Japanese streets, the generational difference in diet is clear: Young people are taller than their parents and often tower over grandparents.

"Japanese people are getting bigger in general," says Takeshi Hayashi of the Japan Sumo Association. His wrestlers weigh an average of 338 pounds - 50 pounds heavier than they were in 1975. Fans are complaining that the wrestlers are getting too big and it's bad for the sport: The games are no longer as exciting or as drawn out. ``We haven't ordered them to diet,'' says Mr. Hayashi, ``but we've warned them informally.''

Wasabi

Wasabi is Japanese horseradish. It is most famous in form of a green paste used as condiment for sashimi (raw seafood) and sushi. However, wasabi is also used for many other Japanese dishes.

Wasabi is a root vegetable that is grated into a green paste. In supermarkets, wasabi is widely available as a paste or in powder form. Wasabi powder has to be mixed with water to become a paste. Wasabi has a strong, hot flavour which dissipates within a few seconds and leaves no burning aftertaste in one's mouth.

wasabi paste

Many "wasabi" powder and paste products that are available in supermarkets (and even some restaurants) contain only very little or no real wasabi at all and are made of coloured horseradish instead. This is due to the fact that cultivation of real wasabi is relatively difficult and expensive.

Udon - Japanese Noodles

Udon - Japanese Noodles

Udon are thick Japanese noodles. There are several ways to prepare Udon. This recipe shows three of them:

Kitsune Udon: Fox Udon
Tanuki Udon: Japanese racoon Udon
Tsukimi Udon: "Viewing moon" Udon (the yolk of an egg represents the moon)

Ingredients:

* Udon*
* Noodle soup*: e.g. Ninben Tsuyu no moto
* Kitsune Udon:
o Naruto*: Fish sausage with a pink pattern when cut
o Atsuage*: baked tofu. You can use the triangular atsuage bags that are used for Inari Sushi; but put them first in boiling water for a moment to reduce their strong taste a little bit.
o Leek or green onion
* Tanuki Udon:
o Naruto*
o Tenkatsu: crispy pieces that are left when deep frying tenpura. If not available, you can cut some leek, mix it with tenpura batter and deep fry it.
o Leek or green onion
* Tsukimi Udon:
o One egg per person
o Naruto*
o Leek or green onion

* This ingredient may not be available in Western supermarkets, but you should be able to find it in Japanese grocery stores that exist in most large European and American cities.

Preparation:

Noodles

1. Boil Udon and boil some water in another pan (about 400ml per person, depends on the size of the bowl in which you will serve the noudles).
2.
Cut naruto (about 7mm thin) and leek/green onion.
3. Put Udon into sieve and rinse it with hot water.
4. Add noudle sauce into prepared hot water. Consult the bottle label about the proportion.With "Ninben Tsuyu no moto" sauce the proportion sauce-water is 1:8.
5. Put the hot Sauce into a bowl and add Udon into it. (Use one bowl per person)


Kitsune Udon

6. Decorate Udon with atsuage, cut leek and naruto.


Tanuki Udon

7. Put the deep fried pieces (Rests of Tenpura deep frying), naruto and cut leek onto the noudles.


Tsukimi Udon

8. Put the york, cut leek and naruto onto the noudles.

Serving and eating:

Noodle eating directions: Keep the distance between your mouth and the bowl quite small, and lead the noodles with the chopsticks step by step into your mouth producing sipping noises.

General information:

Noodles (Soba, Udon, and Ramen) are very popular in Japan. Noodle restaurants can be found everywhere.

Tempura

Tempura - Seafood and vegetables deep fried in tempura batter

Tempura was brought to Japan by the Potuguese. Today Tempura is a very popular Japanese food, and as well one of the best known outside of Japan.

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Ingredients:

• Tempura batter mix*
• Tempura dipping sauce*
• Prawn: raw and large
• Seafood: almost everything is possible
• Vegetables: pumpkin, carot, sweet potatoe, eggplant, and more
• Mushrooms
• and much more to try.

* This ingredient may not be available in Western supermarkets, but you should be able to find it in Japanese grocery stores that exist in most large European and American cities.

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Preparation:

0. Prawn: Remove the head and the shell. Make little cuts on the inside of the curved prawn since they look nicer if their posture is straight.
1. Cut the vegetables in about 1cm thick pieces.
   
2. You can use whole mushrooms.

3. Mixtures: Cut various ingredients in small pieces and mix them together, eg. green onion, prawn and carots.

4. Mix Tempura flour with the amount of water described on the package. Do not mix it completely, but leave some small lumps in it.
5. Cover all the ingredients completely with the batter.
   Mix also the mixtures made of the small cut ingredients with batter, and try to deep fry it together. Don't let them fall apart in all the pieces.
6. Deep fry at 180 degrees celsius. Be careful, and do not use wet ingredients because the water would react strongly with the hot oil, which may harm your skin or eyes.

7. When the Tempura pieces are beautifully golden, take them out, and try to remove as much oil as possible.

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Serving and eating:

There are a few different ways to serve Tempura. Here are two of them:

• Serve the Tempura pieces on a plate, and prepare some bowls with Tempura dipping sauce.
• Tendon (Tempura Donburi): Put the pieces in Tempura dipping sauce, remove them, and put them on top of cooked rice in a bowl. (One bowl per person)

Susi

Sushi is the most famous Japanese dish outside of Japan, and one of the most popular dishes among the Japanese themselves who usually enjoy sushi on special occasions.

During the Edo period, "sushi" refered to pickled fish conserved in vinegar. Nowadays sushi can be defined as a dish containing rice which has been prepared with sushi vinegar. There are many different types of sushi. Some popular ones are:

	Nigiri Small rice balls with fish, etc. on top. There are countless varieties of nigirizushi, some of the most common ones being tuna, shrimp, eel, squid, octopus and fried egg.
	Gunkan Small cups made of sushi rice and dried seaweed filled with seafood, etc. There are countless varieties of gunkanzushi, some of the most common ones being sea urchin and various kinds of fish eggs.
	Norimaki Sushi rice and seafood, etc. rolled in dried seaweed sheets. There are countless varieties of sushi rolls differing in ingredients and thickness. Sushi rolls prepared "inside out" are very popular outside of Japan, but rarely found in Japan.
	Temaki Temakizushi (literally: hand rolls) are cones made of nori seaweed and filled with sushi rice, seafood and vegetables.
	Oshizushi Oshizushi is pressed sushi, in which the fish is pressed onto the sushi rice in a wooden box. The picture shows trout oshizushi in form of a popular ekiben (train station lunch box).
	Inari Inarizushi is a simple and inexpensive type of sushi, in which sushi rice is filled into aburaage (deep fried tofu) bags.
	Chirashi Chirashizushi is a dish in which seafood, mushroom and vegetables are spread over sushi rice.

Note that "sushi" becomes "zushi" in word combinations in which "sushi" is the second word, e.g. nigirizushi.

Domburi

Domburi is a general term for "bowl". However, it is also the name of a popular Japanese dish: a bowl of cooked rice with some other food put on top of it.

There exist a variety of domburi dishes, differing in the toppings. Some of the most popular domburi dishes are listed below:

	Oyakodon (Oyako Domburi) Mother and Child Domburi The name of this popular domburi dish comes from its two main ingredients, chicken and egg. Very rarely, a domburi with salmon and ikura (salmon eggs) may also be called Oyakodon.
	Katsudon (Tonkatsu Domburi) Pork Cutlet Domburi Katsudon is served with tonkatsu (deep fried breaded pork cutlet), egg and onions on top of the rice.
	Gyudon (Gyuniku Domburi) Beef Domburi Gyudon is very popular as an inexpensive type of fast food served at chain stores across the country. It tastes particularly good when mixed with a raw egg.
	Tendon (Tempura Domburi) Tempura Domburi Tempura are deep fried pieces of battered seafood and vegetables. Various tempura pieces are dipped into a soya based sauce before served on top of the rice.
	Unadon (Unagi Domburi) Eel Domburi The eel is grilled and prepared in a thick soya based sauce before served on top of the cooked rice.
	Chukadon (Chuka Domburi) Chinese Style Domburi The topping of Chukadon consists of vegetables, seafood and meat in a thickened Chinese style sauce.
	Tekkadon (Tekka Domburi) Tuna Domburi The topping of Tekkadon is raw tuna (maguro). It is served with strips of nori seaweed and sometimes ground yamaimo.

Besides the domburi dishes introduced above, there are many more domburi varieties.

Japanese Ramen Noodles

Instant ramen noodles are popular in the world, but ramen eaten in Japan are different from instant noodles. Chukamen (raw Chinese noodles) are used to make ramen. Even though Chinese noodles are used in ramen dishes, ramen is a typical Japanese food. There are so many ramen shops in Japan, and ramen is a kind of Japanese fast food.

Making a delicious ramen isn't easy if you are making the soup from scratch. The taste of ramen mainly depends on the soup, and it requires skills to make delicious soup. Ramen chefs usually train for a long time to learn to make ramen soup. Each ramen shop has its own way to make soup, and there are so many different ways. Chicken born, pork born, dried sardines (niboshi), and/or kombu are used to make soup stock for ramen. Vegetables, such as ginger, negi, garlic, or/and mushrooms are also added.

Categorized by the flavor, there are mainly four kinds of ramen: shio ramen (salt flavored soup), shoyu ramen (soy sauce flavored soup), tonkotsu ramen (pork bone soup), miso ramen (miso flavored soup). Tonkotsu ramen soup is creamy white, and miso ramen soup is brown.

Common ramen toppings are negi (leek), shinachiku (seasoned bamboo shoots), nori (dried seaweed), yakibuta (pork ham), boiled egg, and so on.

To make ramen at home, buying packages of ramen noodles is an easy way. They are usually sold with small packages of ramen soup. ANA super Japanese Supermarket sells Japanese ramen packages online. If you can't get packages of ramen noodles, here are easy ramen recipes.

Quick Shoyu Ramen Recipe

Salt Flavored Corn Ramen Recipe Japanese Cuisine Photo Gallery / More Japanese Recipes