Two (neither reigned supreme and both are unfortunately out of business) mail-order ramen delivery businesses battling it out to deliver restaurant-quality ramen right to your doorsteps. Whose ramen service will reign supreme? Allez cuisine (that’s an Iron Chef Japan reference)!
Ever since the pandemic, there has been a massive spike in mail-order to online delivery, and that trend will most likely remain commonplace. Except which ramen service becomes a reoccurring charge on your credit card will come down to one of these two, in a battle where only one can reign supreme.
Delivery throughout the U.S., except all of you in da 808 (where a gallon of milk is upwards of $8.99) and Alaska, but you knew that.
The 808 has their saimin and spam musubi grinds anyways.
Ramen Hero (www.ramenhero.com)
“Our mission is to make authentic, premium Japanese ramen accessible to every noodle-loving American. We’re the first company to deliver real “Honkaku” ramen meal kits in the U.S.”
– Ramen Hero
- Location: the San Francisco Bay area (NorCal)
- Founder: Hiro Hasegawa
- Address: physical location not disclosed.
- Tel: N/A
- Email: support@ramenhero.com
Ramen District (www.ramendistrict.store)
“Ramen District started as an idea of bringing together famous and select ramen in one place. We wanted to make them available to ramen lovers like us, who either couldn’t get to these restaurants or no longer wanted to deal with the commute and long waits.”
– Ramen District
- Location: the Los Angeles metro area (SoCal)
- Founder: Takeo Shibatani
- Address: 1957 W Carson St. #107, Torrance CA 90501
- Tel: 866-508-0141
- Email: hello@ramendistrict.store
Why Mail Order Ramen From Either Company
You live in an area where you do not have access to legit restaurant quality Japanese ramen (I feel you homie).
Ramen Delivery Service Comparison
If you are Googling “ramen delivery near me,” you will get your local restaurants which are only as good as the city you live in. Such as if you are in LA, you coo. The Bay Area and New York have been legit as of the last decade, although anywhere else, it is slim pickings which is why you want either one of these services.
| Ramen Hero | Ramen District | |
|---|---|---|
| Type of products offered | Products produced by Ramen Hero | Products by popular ramen restaurants in Los Angeles |
| Menu offerings | Burning love, Misosaurus, Crying Samurai, the Mad Dashi, Magic Mushroom, Totally Tonkotsu, Hippie Van, Miso Impossible. | Authentic Japanese Ramen from Kashiwa, Tatsunoya, Mogu Mogu, Ikkousha, Daikokuya, and Tsujita |
| Average transit times | 5-10 business days | 2-3 days |
| Delivery Area | We currently deliver throughout the US, except for Alaska, Hawaii, and certain zip codes. To see if we deliver to your area, please enter your zip code in the box at the bottom of the checkout page and click on the “Check” button. Please note that we cannot deliver to P.O. boxes. | We currently deliver throughout the US, except for Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico. We cannot ship to PO Boxes. |
| Average min price per serving | Minimum of $85 for (4) servings or $21.25 each serving with shipping. | Daikokuya tonkotsu ramen (2) servings for $30.80, plus shipping of $30, comes out to $60.80 or $30.40 per serving. |
| Estimated Bulk Pricing | $140 for (8) meals which includes free shipping comes out to $17.50 each serving. | Tsujita tsukemen (8) servings for $131.20, plus shipping of $15 comes out to $146.20 or $18.27 per serving. |
| What is Included | 1 pouch of soup, 1 bag of noodles, 4 toppings (1 pouch with nori seaweed and 1 pouch with 3 different toppings) will be included per serving. | Tsujita: Noodles, soup, pork chashu, seaweed, dried green, onion, bamboo shoots, lime |
| Portion Size | The serving size is about 20oz, which is about 567g. The noodles take up 4.94 oz or 140g of the total. | N/A |
| Shipping costs | Orders containing a subscription item qualify for free shipping! For all other orders, there is a flat-rate shipping fee of $8.99. | Under $50, $30, and over is $15. |
Surprisingly, they are both comparably priced at about $17.90 per serving on average.
Although they are not comparable products.
Is the Ramen Any Good?
RAMEN HERO: I have not tried the Ramen Hero product and the only information you are provided about the capability/taste is “you’re enjoying recipes created by a master ramen chef who’s trained with the best ramen establishments in Japan.”
RAMEN DISTRICT: The great thing with Ramen District is that I have been to three out of the five restaurants offered because these are some of the best ramen shops/restaurants in Los Angeles. They range from Daikokuya who is an old school player and has over 8k+ reviews on Yelp because they were one of the only legit places back in 2004 when I first moved to LA. As for Tsujita, the late Jonathan Gold, the Los Angeles Times Pulitzer prize winning restaurant critic, placed it on his 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles. I placed it on my list of places to take visitors and to take myself.
As for approach, I have to give it up to Ramen District (FTW) because I always have a craving for some Daikokuya even though they go H.A.M on the negi and moyashi. Along with the chashu being like a crumpled up fast food napkin (too thinly sliced), but I still love them though.
There is a reason why Daikokuya has over 9k reviews on Yelp.
| Company Name | Approx. Monthly Web Traffic | Instagram Following | How Long in Business |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ramen Hero | 1.55k (68 ads) | 22.5k | Approx. 4+ years? (10/16) |
| Ramen District | 1.63k (0 ads) | 2k | Approx. Less than a year (8/20) |
The Ramen District roster (product lineup) is like a garage with a Ferrari 488, Nissan GT-R (R35), Aventador, Porsche 991, FD3S (classic), to an S2000 with a K20c1 swap.
If you are not a car dude/chica, I just laid out a drool worthy roster.
The Tiers of Ramen Quality (Your Options)
Ramen was nearly not as popular as it is now, so I have been through every possible restaurant level ramen alternative that ranges from the least (1-instant ramen) to the ideal (7-restaurant):
- Instant ramen (deep-fried noodles): yea, yea, yea, the “broke college student to being a broke a** adult” ramen with dry seasoning packets. You know the stuff by Maruchan Top Ramen to Nissin Cup Noodles.
- Instant ramen (air-dried noodles): when I eat instant ramen, I seek out the air-dried noodles which will often have the liquid seasoning although the Sapporo Ichiban Momosan (Morimoto) noodles are a good one even with their half-n-half (dry seasoning with an oil packet).
- “Omiyage” style instant ramen: since I love ramen, I have received these from girlfriends over the years which are food gifts from Japan. Typically they are the take-home instant ramen versions that big/famous restaurants sell (Ichiran currently is the only one that I know of that sells it in the U.S. which goes for $29.00 for 3 servings).
- Instant ramen (fresh noodles): now we talking because the fresh noodles take “instant ramen” up several notches although I feel the stock/flavoring is still an instant ramen. The best and most popular brands are Sun Noodles and Yamachan Ramen which all go for $4-5 a serving? (I’m not going to look it up, and I want to pull a “The Price is Right” and make a guess. How did I do Drew?).
- Food/Restaurant distributor instant ramen: the recent boom/explosion of Americanized ramen restaurants in the United States is due to food distributors offering up restaurant level (generic) instant ramen kits. I seriously never thought it would do well because I thought customers would be more discerning, but I was very wrong about that. Now we have Mimi Miyagi Ramen, Hitachi Ramen, Sumo Ramen, Guts Ramen, Samurai ramen and any every name a restauranteur can cash in on.
- Mail-order frozen ramen: whether or not the stock is centrally produced or done in-house, this is the level or the spots featured by Ramen Hero and Ramen District.
- Restaurant ramen: whether or not the stock and noodles are centrally produced or done in-house, this is why I love ramen. These are often your large Japanese ramen chains to small independent shops (some amazing to “they should have stuck to buying the instant ramen from a food distributor”).
Ramen Hero does have a well produced commercial (and we need to see more of this Asian dude/actor/cowboy).
The creative studio behind it is IyashiSF.com.
Which Ramen Delivery Reigns Supreme
The tonkotsu (pork bone stock) from Ikkousha is not the same tasting as Daikokuya, yet they both do tonkotsu. They are also two of my favorite tonkotsu spots although few businesses can come close (well maybe Silverlake Ramen coming close to Daikokuya) which is why these are some of the biggest standouts in Los Angeles for upwards of two decades to the last decade.
Shibatani’san aka Ramen District is no noob in the food industry, and he has paid his dues. That experience comes through with what Ramen District is able to able to offer all of us.
Also if you want takoyaki, Shibatani is the dude with the balls.
So for an unknown newcomer coming out of the Bay Area with comparable pricing, is maybe one reason myself and many others may find their product to be a stretch in opening our wallets to.
I will throw in the details about Shibatani’san which is that dude is an OG in the food/restaurant industry. He has paid his dues doing food events/festivals, private events, to his latest venture. That right there is why I gravitate towards him not just on a business level, but also for him allying with the top ramen-ya’s in all of LA. Although the best way to find out is for yourself. That way, you will know for sure which one reigns supreme because in the end, they are both making the ramen scene all that much better.
