A red bucket on a rope in front of a house facade has become an attraction for gourmets in Berlin-Mitte. It is the trademark for Christopher Selig’s home-made Japanese noodle soup Ramen.
The cook uses the bucket to rope the soup down to his customers from a window in his apartment. Included with every delivery: a cup of soup, a cup of pasta, meat and vegetables. Celebrities have already grabbed it. The actor Jimi Blue Ochsenknecht or the chef The Duc Ngo have already eaten his noodle soup, as Selig revealed to the German Press Agency.
Fascination Japan
Selig likes the island nation and the cuisine there. “There is a famous ramen shop in Japan that has a blue bucket hanging in front of the door whenever it opens,” Selig said. “Well, he has no sign, no really fixed opening hours, but always hangs out the bucket when it’s open.” And when the broth tastes the way the chef imagines it: “I found that exciting.”
Two years ago, during the Corona period, Selig began to pursue his passion for cooking and documented his progress via the online platform Instagram. The actually simple Japanese noodle soup dish ramen fascinated him. “A noodle soup that can be turned into a completely different taste experience by turning individual components.”
His recipe for success
It took more than a year for Selig to put together the ramen he had imagined. He currently offers his ramen, which he sells as so-called ramen kits for warming up, in two variants, with more to come. His ramen consists, among other things, of chicken broth, spices, homemade noodles, a marinated egg and various vegetables. All components are elaborately prepared.
The first attempts were always terrible, said Selig. He exchanged ideas with others online, bought a Japanese cookbook and translated the recipes with an app.
Friends and family tried his attempts first, he distributed a lot. Word quickly got around on Instagram. “I was lucky that people who had a lot of followers had tried it,” says Selig. He no longer cooks at home, but in a commercial kitchen. Not just because of the quantities: “It’s just that I prepare several very odor-intensive components.”
His Instagram account currently has more than 10,000 followers, and he has already sold several hundred ramen this year. Customers can order the noodle soup online. It is then either delivered or the customers pick it up from his bucket, which hangs down from his apartment on the second floor of the apartment building on Swinemünder Strasse.
Interview with Christopher Selig in the Berliner Morgenpost Homepage Food Technique Berlin Instagram Food Technique Berlin
