The Tastiest Ramen Isn't Found on Earth, It's Above it

Somewhere above the arctic expanse on my All Nippon Airways (ANA) flight between New York and Tokyo, I ordered Ippudo’s plant-based ramen, and it was the best and coziest bite of airplane food I’ve ever tasted. In fact, it ranks among some of the best noodles I’ve had on the ground, too. 

I curled up in “The Room” ANA’s exceptionally comfortable lie-flat business class seat enclosed by sliding wood-paneled doors that offered privacy and a tranquil, cabin-like atmosphere. I savored the excellent main meal of delicate amuse bouches, fresh tender sashimi, and delectable seafood in a myriad of preparations (smoked, grilled, poached, marinated, simmered, seared, deep-fried) served on elegant, patterned dishware. 

After the main meal service, while winding down with a movie starring some of the lesser Avengers, I flipped through the menu booklet past thoughtfully curated sake, shochu, and champagne offerings and spotted Ippudo, the world-renowned ramen restaurant with dozens of locations spanning four continents, listed among the “Light Dish” options. It was then I realized that ANA, in collaboration with Ippudo, now serves a fully vegan bowl of noodles at 36,000 feet. So, I ordered up seconds. 

Hakata Ippudo opened its doors in 1985 in Hakata (the ramen capital of Japan), serving tonkotsu ramen. Tonkotsu, or “pork bone,” ramen begins with the long, slow simmering of pork bones and results in a creamy white broth loaded with salty, porky, flavor. Chewy wheat noodles and toppings such as scallions, mushrooms, chashu (thinly sliced braised pork), ginger, seaweed, and sesame seeds often round out the dish. Ippudo’s Hakata-style ramen uses a thinner noodle. The thinner noodles have a shorter cooking time, which lends itself well to delicious at-altitude preparation. 

ANA’s “Pla-ton”(‘pla’ for plant and ‘ton’ for pork) looked surprisingly similar to pork tonkotsu ramen – the straight wheat noodles suspended in the creamy broth were fresh and served perfectly al dente. The rich bowl comes with a packet of Ippudo branded red pepper paste and finished with crackly nori and verdant scallions. The ramen, developed both to meet demand from customers with dietary restrictions and to offer a more inclusive range of dishes, somehow did achieve porkiness. Its full-bodied broth and springy noodles would sate those accustomed to a meatier ramen. 

Once we landed in Tokyo, Seigou Mori, ANA’s head chef for Japanese cuisine, gave me a behind-the-scenes look at how ANA prepares visually appealing and delicious meals for airline passengers, and I had the chance to taste the vegan ramen once again at its Blue Base just outside the Haneda Airport. 

Chef Mori explained that in cooked dishes, certain colors, especially green, “can be wiped out” by the necessary cooling and reheating process to maintain food safety for in-flight meal service. “Moisture is key,” Mori said, and maintaining the original moisture of the food is a challenge when preparing meals that must stand up to the reheating process and be served in a dry cabin. 

The dry air reduces our ability to smell, which impacts the perception of certain flavors. ANA’s chefs devise unique solutions to unique airline problems – “to keep sauces from splitting through cooling and heating they might use an agar powder,” Chef Mori shared. To combat our reduced perception of saltiness, they serve up this top-notch ramen dish with rich complexity whose umaminess is unaffected by the altitude and dry cabin air. 

Chef Mori would not share what’s in the vegan broth, “It’s a secret from Ippudo,” but previous iterations of Ippudo’s plant-based ramen dishes have used combinations of soy milk, mushrooms, kombu dashi, and heat and flavor-infused oils to achieve the silky texture and depth of flavor, so I’d venture some of those ingredients might be at play here. 

While this collaboration between ANA and Ippudo brings restaurant-quality noodles to first and business class passengers, ANA offers 24 special meals, including various allergy-free, vegetarian, vegan, raw, kosher, halal, Hindu, and jain meals available to preorder for all classes. In this way, the pervasive thoughtfulness evident in the service, careful preparation, and inclusiveness of diets extends to all passengers. 

This cozy “pla-ton” ramen is perfect any time of day or night. On my return flight, I awoke from a nap feeling snacky at 3 a.m. and ordered this ramen for night breakfast; each time I savored it, and at every altitude, it ruled.