Ramen, It’s what’s for dinner.
My search for not only the best, but also the most consistent pre-packaged ramen in the world.
I decided to take an in depth look into the world of pre-packaged ramen. With the help of a Kaggle dataset, I was able to break down over 2500 different instant noodle favorites. I explored and reshaped the data searching for the countries that had the overall highest average of scores for ramen, and the countries with the most amount of top ratings. Only having experience with my go to Nissin Cup O’Noodles, Maruchan Ramen, and a handful of others, I was shocked to find out there were so many different kinds to choose from. In order to narrow things down a bit, I took all of the countries that had at least 30 different ramen’s to choose from and figured out the average star rating for each of those countries. Thinking Japan would dominate the rankings it was quite a surprise to see them come in 4th in this measurement. Only 3 countries had an average rating of at least 4 stars, they were 1.) Malaysia, 2.) Singapore and 3.) Indonesia. Here is a graph of the final mean ratings:
After finding where you can get the most consistent ramen, I decided to look for which countries put out the highest quantity of top notch noodles. I compiled a list of 5 star reviews and while there was a handful of countries that had between 35–50 5 star ramens, this time Japan did in fact blow everyone else out of the water. Needless to say, there are perks to being a college kid in Japan. There are enough 5 star options in Japan to give you a different option for almost every day of the semester.
Last, but not least, I figured I would look into the packaging of choice for most instant noodle options. Ramen packs are the run away favorite. They over double the second (bowls) and third (cups) options available. Come to think of it, I am curious to what a tray of ramen would look like. Not to add another food into the mix, but here is a pie chart to give a nice visual.
So in conclusion, the ramen world is much bigger than I anticipated. I never would have guessed there would be so many different options, not to mention the vast amount of 5 star rated noodles. If you are an instant noodle fanatic then a trip to Japan or Malaysia should be in your near future, just stay away from Canada.
A monk walks up to a ramen stand and says: ‘make me one with everything’