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50 free Ramen trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Ramen is a Japanese-Chinese fusion dish that started in Yokohama Chinatown in the late 1800s, was long dismissed as cheap working-class food, and is now treated as a national dish with thousands of specialist shops in Tokyo alone. The story runs through Cantonese cooks in Asakusa, American wheat flour after the war, black-market stalls, and a 48-year-old salt merchant named Momofuku Ando who flash-fried noodles in 1958 and changed what the world eats at 2 a.m. This quiz covers the bowl itself — kansui noodles, chintan and paitan broths, the three tare families, menma and narutomaki — plus the regional map: Sapporo miso, Hakodate shio, Kitakata's flat noodles, Hakata tonkotsu, Ie-kei in Yokohama and oddities like Taiwan ramen from Nagoya. There are questions on instant noodles, Cup Noodles, Tampopo, the steaming-bowl emoji and the canned ramen sold from vending machines in Akihabara. Fifty questions, four options each, with a short explanation after every answer. Play on your phone or print it for a food-themed quiz night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The origins of ramen are traced to the Chinatown of which Japanese city?
Yokohama
Most Chinese settlers there were Cantonese, which is why ramen descends from southern Chinese noodle soups rather than northern hand-pulled lamian.
Q 02The word ramen borrows the Chinese word lāmiàn, which literally means what?
Pulled noodles
Ironically, ramen noodles are cut rather than pulled, and the dish has no direct link to lamian at all.
Q 03Who invented instant noodles in 1958?
Momofuku Ando
Ando was the Taiwanese-born founder of Nissin Foods; a Japanese poll later named instant ramen the greatest Japanese invention of the 20th century.
Q 04Tonkotsu pork-bone ramen is the signature style of which Japanese island?
Kyushu
Hakata ramen from Fukuoka is the best-known tonkotsu, with thin straight noodles and a milky broth.
Q 05Miso ramen was invented in which Hokkaido city?
Sapporo
It reached national prominence around 1965 and is built for Hokkaido's snowy winters, often topped with butter, sweetcorn and garlic.
Q 06The Hokkaido port of Hakodate is famous for ramen in which flavour?
Salt
Shio (salt) is the oldest tare; Hakodate's version is light and clear, often with straight noodles.
Q 07Kitakata ramen pairs its pork broth with which small fish?
Baby sardines
Niboshi are the sardines; Kitakata is also famous for thick, flat, curly noodles and has Japan's highest per-capita number of ramen shops.
Q 08What is the name for the lacto-fermented bamboo shoots used as a ramen topping?
Menma
In Japan the topping was formerly known as shinachiku, a name dropped after the war for its imperial overtones.
Q 09The word ramen first appeared in Japan in a 1928 cookbook by which author?
Seiichi Yoshida
Yoshida was describing genuine hand-pulled lamian; the word was not applied to the noodle-soup dish until 1947.
Q 10Early Chinese noodle soups in Japan were lumped under a name meaning 'Nanjing noodles'. What was it?
Nankin soba
Nankinmachi (Nanjing Town) was the common Japanese term for areas where Chinese people settled.
Q 11What was the name of the first specialised ramen shop, opened in 1910?
Rairaiken
Its Japanese founder employed twelve Cantonese cooks from Yokohama's Chinatown and adapted the dish for Japanese customers.
Q 12The first specialised ramen shop opened in 1910 in which Tokyo district?
Asakusa
Founder Kan'ichi Ozaki grew up in Yokohama, where he had seen Chinese noodle dishes thrive while most Japanese looked down on them.
Q 13Kan'ichi Ozaki staffed his 1910 ramen shop with twelve cooks from which Chinese regional tradition?
Cantonese
One of them, Fu Xinglei, opened a second Rairaiken in Meguro in 1933.
Q 21Alkaline jiǎnshuǐ water gives ramen noodles a firm texture and what colour tint?
Yellowish
The alkaline water is said to originate in Inner Mongolia.
Q 22What is the term for a clear ramen stock, skimmed of foam as it simmers?
Chintan
The word comes from the Chinese qīngtāng, 'clear soup'; it is the most common kind of ramen stock.
Q 23A creamy white ramen broth made by boiling chicken bones is known as what?
Tori paitan
Paitan broths get their milky look from bones emulsifying into the soup during hours of hard boiling.
In shio ramen, sliced pork is sometimes replaced with which topping?
Q 14In which year did the original store of Japan's first specialised ramen shop close?
1976
Ozaki's grandson and great-great-grandson revived it as a pop-up inside the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum in 2020.
Q 15In which year was Nissin Chikin Ramen, the first instant noodle, released?
1958
Its launch is what spread the name ramen nationwide; before that most people said shina soba or chūka soba.
Q 16Japan's ramen museum, in Kōhoku-ku, opened in which year?
1994
The Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum sits in Kōhoku-ku and has hosted revivals of historic shops.
Q 17Tsuta, the ramen restaurant that received a Michelin star in 2015, is in which Tokyo district?
Sugamo
Tokyo alone has around 5,000 ramen shops, with more than 24,000 across Japan.
Q 18Roughly how many ramen shops does Tokyo alone contain?
5,000
The larger figure, over 24,000, is the count for the whole of Japan.
Q 19What is the main purpose of tare in a bowl of ramen?
To add salt to the broth
Tare also carries umami; shio, shōyu and miso are the three main families.
Q 20Besides wheat flour, salt and water, what alkaline ingredient goes into chūkamen noodles?
Kansui
Kansui contains sodium and potassium carbonate; Japan has no natural source, so such noodles were hard to make before the Meiji era.
Lean chicken meatballs
Pickled plums and kamaboko fish cake are also popular on shio bowls.
Q 25Around which year did miso ramen reach national prominence in Japan?
1965
Its thick, nutty broth stands up to bold toppings like spicy bean paste, butter and corn.
Q 26Hokkaido's famous miso ramen is typically topped with butter and which vegetable?
Sweetcorn
Local seafood such as scallop, squid and crab also turns up on Sapporo bowls.
Q 27Narutomaki, the white disc with a pink spiral, is a slice of what?
Fish cake
It is a form of kamaboko, processed fish paste formed into a roll.
Q 28Before being called menma, fermented bamboo shoots were known in Japan by what name?
Shinachiku
Shina, the old word for China, took on a pejorative sense after the war and was dropped from many terms.
Q 29What does a customer receive when ordering kae-dama at a tonkotsu ramen shop?
A noodle refill
It costs a few hundred yen more and goes into the remaining broth.
Q 30Ie-kei ramen's standard toppings include pork, nori and which boiled green vegetable?
Spinach
Ie-kei diners traditionally customise noodle softness, broth richness and the amount of oil.