At Delhi’s Mamagoto, the restaurant that specialises in pan Asian fare, ramen is the dish of the moment. First-timers can expect a steaming bowl of noodles steeped in a rich broth, topped with boiled spinach and a mound of diced chicken and garnished with small square nori sheets. The springy noodle and soup dish (the noodles have a bouncy texture despite being immersed in hot broth) is a hearty treat.

A ramen war is on at top-rated restaurants specialising in Japanese and other Asian cuisines and chefs are using every trick in their recipe books to keep this noodle dish at the top of their popularity charts.

So, is ramen a soup or a noodle dish? It fits snugly into both brackets. A key part of the Japanese culinary scene, ramen is a warm broth with noodles and assorted goodies tossed in. Anything delicious goes in: seafood, meat, boiled eggs, chopped scallions, cabbage, corn, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, fish cake and more. Make no mistake, ramen is not a quick bite and is a complete meal in itself.

What’s more, the hearty noodle soup has made a bold entry into the Indian dining scene. “Who would have thought sushi would find favour with Indians? But if our taste buds have evolved enough to embrace sushi, it’s not surprising that ramen is next on the list,” says Janti Dugal, food director, Azure Hospitality, which owns Mamagoto that has multiple outlets in Delhi and the NCR. Mamagoto offers two kinds of ramen on its menu including classic and spicy in both vegetarian and non-vegetarian versions.

There are other reasons for the surge in ramen’s popularity. According to Vikram Khatri, executive chef, Guppy by ai, restaurateur A.D. Singh’s contemporary Japanese restaurant in Delhi, Indian diners now love to experiment as much as the expatriate community. “India has evolved as a market for new dishes,” he says.

The chefs say that there are many different types of ramen on offer. In Japan there are four main styles. First, there’s tonkotsu that’s accompanied by a pork bone soup. Then there’s miso which has a broth made with salty dollops of fermented soy bean and shio which comes with a soup that’s light in colour and is made from a mix of dried seafood, seaweeds and other salty ingredients. Finally, there’s shoyu that has a soy sauce (shoyu) based soup with a light flavour.

But there are many more varieties across various regions of Japan. These too are making their way to the menus of restaurants in India.

In order to cater to their well-heeled customers, Indian chefs are playing around with a variety of ramen. For instance, at Guppy by ai, there’s Chashu Ramen (ramen with broiled pork belly slice) in two variations — Shoyu and Miso — that are served with a tonkotsu broth.

The chef has played up lesser known variations of ramen in the menu too for his noodle-fanatic patrons. He introduced a cold ramen in his menu last summer called Hiyashi chuka that’s served chilled with various toppings such as vegetables, corn and more, while the sweet and sour soup is sesame based. “Most of the toppings used are summer specific such as melon, mango and cucumber. It’s a treat for the eyes,” says Khatri, who is introducing cold Tantanmen ramen (Price Rs ?700) this season, where the soup base is sesame and pork.

Even Santosh Pandey, executive chef of the Fuji Japanese Restaurant in Delhi, is pulling out all the stops to make his ramen a sensory delight. The showstopper at Fuji is the Tsukemen ramen where the cold noodles and hot soup are served separately. The idea is to dip the chilled noodles in the piping hot soup. “The rich broth accompanying Tsukemen ramen makes the dish what it is,” says Pandey.

But it’s not only multiple Japanese styles of ramen that are scoring brownie points with diners. The dish is also being given a unique spin by a host of chefs across the country. The Fatty Bao, a restaurant that’s opened its doors in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi and is known for its new Asian-style dining is giving its own twist to ramen. The Delhi outlet offers a ramen called Green Curry Chicken Katsu Ramen, a take on the Thai green curry. You can also order a ramen called Fatty Pho, which uses a Vietnamese broth with black ramen noodles. “The noodles get their colour from edible charcoal,” says Prashanth Puttaswamy, executive chef, The Fatty Bao, Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. The ramen dishes at The Fatty Bao’s Delhi outlet are priced from Rs 425 to Rs 495.

The explosion of Asian flavours in these bowls of goodness is here for good. So stay ahead of the culinary curve and dig into ramen this season.