00:00:07 John Daub: This in front of me is a ramen like I've never seen before. On the package, a cemetery. Zombies. Destroyed bear. Its guts hanging out. Stitching. Disgusting. This, ladies and gentlemen, is called ZomRamen. And as you can see, it's celebrated by the ugliest of bears, including eyeballs. Blue soup. Pretty much rotting, decaying. And you can only find this in Hokkaido. But I was able to find this in another place. Haneda Airport, here in Tokyo.

00:00:59 John Daub: Welcome to another live stream. We are trapped. Stop this music. Okay, that's just creepy. Welcome to Tokyo. This is another live stream where I'm going to attempt to make ramen again. Last time, I did actually try to make ramen. It did not go well. Apparently, I didn't follow the directions and most of the internet got angry with me. It was rough. But this time, I promise I shall read the instructions because one of the great things about this particular ramen, besides the fact that it is just gory and all the details, I love the fact that they put these traditional chuka ramen designs that you have around the bowls.

00:01:47 John Daub: Don't mistake it. It is ramen. This is just creepy as F. Look at this. What is going on here? I'm wondering if an eyeball actually does come in this. So if you're curious, you're going to want to stick around for the next 15 minutes or so. Now it requires 600 cc of water, which is about three of these. So I made sure we're going to measure this out properly. Put this into the bowl. The soup. Just put it into the bowl and eat it. Okay. It looks pretty easy. I don't think you can mess this up.

00:02:24 John Daub: The website is interesting. It's just zombear.net if you want more information. This is creepy, right? The music matches the website. This is the Zombear website. It's gross. And you can buy stuffed animals that apparently have, like, on Amazon too, that have taken out their guts. I mean, what kind of kids are you trying to raise out there, people? If you're buying this stuff for your kids where the zombie bear is like, oh, look at my sausage intestines. It's not good parenting. Or it's great parenting. I guess it just depends on how you look at it.

00:03:18 John Daub: All right. Let's open this up here. Poor Teddy. Look, I am Zozo. There's nothing poor about this Teddy. This Teddy is a zombie. It's already gone. So you know, poor humans that will get devoured by said zombie. Let's open it up. I'm really curious about this. Let me open it up. Oh. Japanese often open potato chips down the center like this. Oh. What? This is blue. I guess that's kind of... It's not even a blue. It's like a gray blue, I guess. Like an indigo blue. Like I've been rotting underneath the ground for two years blue. What? Oh, that's wicked.

00:04:23 John Daub: So this is like the tare. I guess the sauce, the ramen soup. Not tare. Zombear ramen soup. It's pretty nasty. I mean, you don't want to tango with this thing. It's like Five Nights at Freddy's or something. The other side looks the same. And they put a little business card in here. I guess that's the website I showed before. Whoa! A little anime action here. Zombear. He comes. And then... It's just nasty. Okay. After five years later. This is weird. I guess there's an eyeball. But I don't know where the eyeball is. Is the eyeball in the noodles? Or is the eyeball in the soup? We're about to find out.

00:05:09 John Daub: So let's just get this done here. I got to start off with six cups of water. And I started late because I was not allowed to live stream unless I'd cleaned the kitchen first. Kanae is quite strict. So I had to clean, like, gross stuff in the kitchen here. We got to get 600 milliliters of water. And this is my bread maker cup. Alright, 200. I'm going to measure this out right here. 2, 4, 6. I can't wing ZomRamen. I don't want the zombies. 600 milliliters. Alright, we got this, folks.

00:05:57 John Daub: Next up, boil the water. We have gas stoves here in Japan. When an earthquake does hit, the gas will turn off underneath there. A button, you have to push the button. It depends on how strong the quake is, but you have to push the button and it releases the gas. There's a lot of safety protocols, so gas leaks do not happen. It's very rare to have a gas explosion in Japan, especially in the newer houses.

00:06:26 John Daub: Alright, so we're going to be making this ZomRamen. Now in Hokkaido, this is something that you can only find up there in Hokkaido. However, it's not. Because you can order this on Amazon, and you can also order this on other net sites. And I think directly from the maker. And then on top of it, you can also get this at Haneda Airport's vending machine. And I have a video up here where I actually bought this at Haneda Airport at a vending machine, which is pretty darn cool. There was a bunch of other weird stuff I bought, but this was the weirdest of them all. And I had to make this ramen because it's getting close to the expiration date. I guess it's good for about six months after. It is instant dried ramen, so they keep pretty good. Oh, this company also does make a bunch of other flavors of zombie ramen, if you want to get into it. They had, like, cow poop ramen or something. They really get into the weirdness of it all.

00:07:36 John Daub: UFO Bob, you ask a very interesting question. The ramen is an edible food for humans, so maybe the zombies are expired, but the ramen itself? I wouldn't want to play around too long with that. You know? John Wakamatsu's in the house! Pay for your blue ramen. This has been brought to you by John Wakamatsu. Thank you, John.

00:08:00 John Daub: All right, we're getting close to the boiling of the soup. According to the directions, which I often mess up here. 600 milliliters of water. So boil this for two minutes. And then three minutes, let it sit. Then add the soup. It's pretty self-explanatory. I'm ready. But the water is not. You know, I heard a rumor that if you stare hard at boiling water, it boils faster. So let's see if that's true. I don't know why. If you stare at it, it will boil faster. Everybody knows this to be true.

00:09:58 John Daub: Oh, the water's turning blue! Nasty! Turn off the lights! Oh, that's gross! This song's not creepy enough. Alright, turn the other one on. We're not there yet. I know, it's not blue enough! Get blue! Yeah, this music is a lot creepier. At any moment, something could happen. This water could just explode like Mount Fuji and erupt, creating a massive mess, making my wife get angry, and thus I will become a zombie. Eventually, this could happen. Alright, it says boil for like three minutes, so I'm not quite sure. I figure that's a lot of heat there.

00:11:14 John Daub: Kanae did not want any part in this. She said this was too creepy, and it just was disgusting, and she's hiding. I'm serious, she doesn't want any part in this. Once again, for those joining us, we are now making ZomRamen, which is only in Hokkaido, but it's not really. It's a bunch of sick, disgusting bears that eat this stuff. You can too, if you have like four bucks. It's starting to come apart now. Alright, the noodles are getting moist. Kanae's really hiding. These noodles are nasty. You know what, it's not even gray. It's like, it's not even blue, it's like a blue-gray. But this kind of blue is even better, because if it was too blue, that would look, it wouldn't look like it was rotting. Right? This looks like it's decaying blue. I don't know, like a gray-indigo blue. I've had blue ramen before, but this was, this is better.

00:12:46 John Daub: Alright, I think it's time to add the soup. There's nobody here to monitor me. Whoa. Alright, this looks like time for the soup. Oh, that's nasty! What is that? It's like green! Oh, gross. Oh, what was that? Some sort of nasty gutter. It's like a fat that just came out. Do you see that? What is that? Ugh, seriously? Turn the light on for this. Alright, it could be the fat. I don't know. It could be my soul. Somebody wrote in, that's your soul. Bug eggs? Zombie fungus? Was that an eye? What? It actually, you know what, when I put in the soup, it actually does smell like ramen now. It really didn't have much of a smell at all. But now it's starting to smell like a ramen. And I guess it must have been the fat or something like that. But it looks like it's done. I have no desire to overboil it. Right? Let's get this going here.

00:14:37 John Daub: I have my ramen bowl that I bought in the past before. Let's go here. Boom. I wish I could add an egg. Oh, look at that broth, it's nasty. Oh, that's so rotten looking. Ugh. I don't see the eyeball though. Hey, Eddie Mendoza, welcome. New traveler, Eddie. I don't see, does anybody see any eyeballs? Where's the eye? That's not right. They should have an eyeball in here, right? You can search for it. Where is it? Do you think maybe it's like hidden? Maybe that's just, I don't know. Can I, there's no eyeball. She said, oh my God. She definitely doesn't want a piece of this. Question. Would you buy this? Is this worth $4? It's up to you. I mean, you have now a choice where you can comment here. This is a softball question. Is the eyeball in here? I don't know. Does it say eyeball, eyeball not included? Oh, you know what? They probably sell this separately. Yeah. The picture even says here, the picture doesn't have the eyeball in it. You see this blue soup. Maybe I've melted the eyeball. That's true. That could be possible. The eyeball has melted. I'm not sure.

00:17:12 John Daub: All right. We need some music here. Let's get back to creepy music here. All right. One last look at the blueness of it. Thank you, Jeff Ang. No egg this time because I need to do this. The noodle pool. Oh, that's gross. Cody from Ramen Guy Japan likes to do the noodle pools here. Nasty. Look at this. My guts. Oh, my intestines. How dare you? Why did you do that? No. Okay. That's enough. Here we go. Is this any good? Only one way to find out. Well, it's hot. That is hot. It smells like ramen. The noodles actually smell good. Like an egg noodle. It has like an egg noodle smell to it. The yellow noodles are what are popular up there in Hokkaido. Here we go. Itadakimasu. I forgot. Itadakimasu.

00:19:02 John Daub: This is good. This is really good. This is a really incredible balance. Usually these instant ramens are too salty. This one has a slight saltiness. But it's not overpoweringly salty. Meaning, they didn't overcompensate. These instant ramens are always a little bit too salty. And this one is a really nice balance. I'm impressed. It's kind of a chicken soup, I think. I think it's chicken based. It's a good balance. I think it's because the noodles. This is like an egg noodle. So it has a really good unique flavor to these naturally. But the broth. Not too salty. Just salty enough. And that's really good. There's just enough. And you can see it on here. It's a really good layer of fat. Do you see that? Hold on. I gotta tilt the camera down. And you want that. For a couple of reasons. The layer of fat keeps the broth warm. And in the winter, you want to keep it as warm as possible. Underneath that layer of fat. It's like a thermos. Just keeps it warm inside there. It adds a little bit of flavor. But it's not too much oil. I've seen a lot more. Especially up there in Tohoku. This could be brains. I don't know. It could be brains.

00:20:36 John Daub: Ghazi Vlogs channel writes in there. Raymond, chicken flavored ramen. It pretty much is. If you want to discuss this, you can go ahead and do so in the Discord server. Discord. We have about 10,000, 11,000 almost people in there that are discussing things about Japan 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We're going to be discussing. At least I'm going to be discussing. I will after this live stream in the Discord server discussing a little bit about instant ramen. There have been some really unique cup noodle ramens that have come out recently. We have in the Discord server actually a Japanese food channel. A food community where people are sharing pictures of Japanese food and talking about it. That's one of my favorite channels to jump into and take a look and see what's everybody eating. And because we can't have a lot of tourism coming to Japan. A lot of people are craving the foods that they would have had had they been able to come here. And if you'd like to share some of your pictures and experiences in the Discord server. It's actually kind of fun to go in there and we do have the ability to make phone calls, video calls with each other. And I might jump into one after this live stream. So I will see you on Discord.

00:22:00 John Daub: Well, can I. You want some? And she said she's okay. You sure it's really good. We can't tempt her. She's hiding in the other room. She didn't even want to come and see this. She thought that there was an eyeball. I searched in here. There's no eyeball. Seriously, I'm searching. I was digging deep. There's no eyeball in here. Raymond, where's the eyeball? I guess you can just say it's brains, right? Just brains. A marketing ploy. It could be. But the color of the noodles is pretty gross. And I dig that. I like it like this. Right? Everything's a gimmick, though. In this age, all of the old ramen companies that have been making ramen for generations have such a strong hold. Unless you innovate ramen, unless you have some kind of gimmick, but not just a gimmick. The gimmick gets people into the door. In order for people to buy it again and for you to sustain a business, you need a gimmick plus an amazing ramen.

00:23:21 John Daub: All right. Whether it is the egg or some topping or zombie bear, you need something to sell people to come into your ramen and then you have to deliver. It's the same with a YouTube channel. Really, there's so many YouTube channels right now on Japan. You have to have some sort of catch to hook people to come into your channel and then you have to deliver on that promise. You have to deliver to get people to stay. So it's one thing to do clickbait videos. And I don't think having an aggressive title is clickbait. I think it's if the title fits the content, even mostly, that's a pretty good title that gets you to come in. But it's up to the creator and it's up to the ramen chef and it's up to the restaurant and it's up to any business to hook people and to keep them and to get them a part of it. And I'm pretty impressed with the taste of this.

00:24:19 John Daub: And the other thing about this, I'm OK with giving them a shout out here. If you want to check out their Facebook, it's just Zombie Bear Living Dead. This is in itself pretty cool, right. That's their Facebook and zombear.net is the website. So you can, I think, maybe even order it again. This cost me about 450 yen in the vending machine but I think you can order it online for about four dollars which is a little bit pricey for ramen but then again I don't think that they sell the same kind of volume as a cup noodle or something. This is a local smaller ramen maker in Hokkaido so the premium price that you pay does help their business I think and I can tell that it is smaller made. It doesn't taste as chemically as the cup noodle stuff. And I am quite impressed because about five ten minutes after I've already boiled it in the water the noodles are staying fairly they're not getting soggy so I don't know what they've done but they've come up. I guess because it's just freeze-dried noodles the noodles don't get soggy too quickly just like fresh ones but it doesn't have a fresh taste to it so I do think you're getting pretty good value.

00:26:00 John Daub: I mean you know they're not as expensive but what I would say I think one thing. There's a line, right? I think the best price for this would be about $3.50, maybe a little bit cheaper. But I think you're getting pretty good value out of this just because it's fun. And it's pretty good. It's a good balanced ramen. Chicken ramen, just a little bit of salt, not overly salty. You can put toppings on there too. I think that they sell the toppings separately. I should have bought that next time. I saw on the internet about three or four different ramen flavors. And they're not just miso ramen. It's like cow poop zombie ramen or something, right? They kind of do what everyone's doing with craft beer in the U.S., kind of bringing a name that is a little bit on the edge to get you to buy into the ramen brand. But I'm pretty happy with this.

00:26:43 John Daub: So there you go. If you have any questions, I will answer them for the next 30 to 45 seconds. This is ZomRamen, the blue one. And it's pretty good. I do like the picture, and it looks creepy as... But that's Japan. Any questions? No? Doesn't look like it. Thanks, everybody, for watching. I'll be back in another livestream very soon.

00:27:15 John Daub: We have the city of... Oh, do you want to see... Can I show you? I'm not sure if I'm allowed to show you. We did finish the bonsai stand. Check it out. So we finished the bonsai stand. Pretty cool, huh? I like it. You can see that episode. We did it a couple of days ago. Bye, everybody. Have a good day. Have a good night. See you tomorrow.