Curried noodle soup (Khao soi) with beef and spicy coconut milk
Curried noodle soup (Khao soi) with beef and spicy coconut milk for food and drink concept design. Thai food.
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Editor's Note: el Restaurante magazine exhibited at the Antojo Industry Expo in October, and the booth next to ours was occupied by Indomie, a company that makes ramen noodles. Why would a ramen noodle company exhibit at a show designed for Mexican/Latin restaurants and retailers? We decided to find out! We interviewed Nugroho Iskandar, the brand manager.
Why did you exhibit at Antojo Expo?
Well, the main purpose, of course, is to introduce our products, our brand, to the Hispanic communities. And I have to be careful when using that term because Hispanic is not one thing, there are different sub ethnicities. It’s just like with the word “Asian,” well, Asian people can come from Korea, from Japan, from China, even from India. Or even Middle Eastern people, some of them belong to the Asian peninsula or Asian continent. So back to your question, first of all, we exhibited to introduce our brand to the Latino or Hispanic community, and then to find a distributor for our products.
Do you see Mexican restaurants as your customers?
They could be, because if you think of our food products, they could be key ingredients of the end product. So for example, one trend that I noticed quite recently is the ramen birria. Another food product that I can cite is a creation that we've tried in a few night markets or street fairs: the ramen burrito. That is a very interesting concept because with ramen birria, the birria kind of overwhelms the taste of the noodles. But in the ramen burrito, instead of rice, you use our noodles. And because of that, the noodles come fully flavored using our flavoring. And that gives a unique flavor or unique taste to the ramen burrito.
in general, do you believe that the flavors of Mexican food and Asian cuisine complement each other?
Asian flavor really complements the Hispanic taste because both of our traditional styles use a lot of spices. And because of that, the flavors are very rich. I think Asian and the Hispanic cuisines would be a perfect match.
But again, we need to be careful [not to generalize]. We have to know specifically, based on the sub ethnicities, what kind of flavoring we should use. For example, even among the ocean communities, some of the communities might actually not like the spicier taste profile.
Asian cuisine comes in a wide range of flavor bases or tastes. Our products are actually based in the Southeast Asian cuisine, which is typically a tropical region. So we use a lot of plants or vegetables that don't exist in the North Asian region, for example. So we use ingredients such as coconut or coconut oil. But in Northern Asia, for example, in Korea, Japan, you would not find coconut trees.
Can you give me an example of restaurant that succeeds with Mexican/Asian fusion?
If you know something about the food truck scene in LA for example, a few years ago there was a very famous Korean food truck that uses the Kobi beef in a taco. The owner is a Korean guy, and Kobi is a very famous beef product from Korea. So he mixed that with the regular Mexican tacos.
But I think we really should have seen more collaborations. We should have seen more mashing up or more fusion type of Asian and Hispanic cuisine in general, or Mexican cuisine in particular. But we haven't seen that. Maybe because of the distance, maybe because of the language barrier or the cultural barriers.
And one of the things that I'm going to promote my brand, my products, is to be like a bridge between Asian and Mexican cuisine or Hispanic cuisine in general.
And how do you envision doing that?
Well, first of all, by creating a fusion type food, like the ramen burrito. But my company is also open to developing a specific taste profile of noodles that would cater to the needs or the wants of Mexican audience in general, or Hispanic audience in general. And that's not something impossible. My products exist in about a hundred different countries, and in some of the countries we develop the local tastes. For example, in Papua New Guinea, we found out that they like a specific type of chicken flavor, but it was not our chicken flavor. So we developed a particular chicken flavor that would cater specifically to the Papua New Guinea audience. We did that also in Nigeria and several other countries too.
And you could do that in Mexico too?
Yes, yes, yes.
Great. And I think you're right, the common overall desire for flavorful dishes are common between Mexico and your cuisine.
I was about to say though, that the spicy taste profile, let's say of the Mexican food for example, it's a little bit different from the spicy taste of my products and in general Asian spicy profile. Your Mexican spicy profile for example, is more towards the kind of the sour type because of the influence of the jalapeno and local vegetables that grow in the Mexico or some of other Hispanic communities. Ours is not really that sour, but it's more like towards the garlic onion type spiciness.
But I think that creates the possibility for the fusion, because there are differences. When you mix them or at least try them in different combinations, it much more interesting than if you were just using your places.
Yes, you’re right.
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