How Jun Furukawa tests new recipes on his regular customers
In the narrow kitchen behind the counter at MEN-EIJI Hiragishi BASE, Jun Furukawa does something few ramen chefs share openly. A new shio might sit beside the house gyokai-tonkotsu for two or three weeks before it earns a permanent menu line. The tasting that decides its fate happens in the same Sapporo warehouse where the brand began, with a small group of diners who already know the broth by heart.
Regulars form the core of that tasting room. Jun grew up watching his grandmother adjust miso with a wooden spoon, and he carries the same instinct into a commercial kitchen. He treats his most frequent guests as a working panel rather than ordinary customers, and their honest reactions to a thicker tare or a lighter chashu are weighed against his own palate.
The habit fits the way Australian chefs in cities such as Melbourne and Brisbane now build loyalty around repeat visitors. Jun's method predates most of those schemes, and it travels well: the trust between a cook and his regulars is a soft technology that survives translation.
Understanding how Jun runs these tastings offers more than a peek inside one Sapporo kitchen. It shows how a small restaurant keeps a menu alive, how international pop-ups take shape, and how the same instincts might guide an Australian chef opening a ramen counter in Perth or Adelaide. The sections ahead trace the process from the first test bowl to the final menu decision.
Where the tasting habit began
Jun's grandfather ran a fishing cooperative on the Hokkaido coast, and his mother kept a small eatery near Shiroishi Station. Both shaped his view that a recipe is never finished. He started cooking seriously in his late twenties, after years selling seafood, and brought the habit of constant revision with him when he opened the first MEN-EIJI counter in 2011.
The earliest tastings happened by accident. Jun would change a single element, perhaps the ratio of niboshi to katsuobushi in the dashi, and serve it to whoever walked in during the lunch lull. He noticed the same faces kept returning, and their willingness to speak plainly gave him more usable notes than any notebook.
That early pattern became the template he still uses. The new bowl appears unannounced on the handwritten board at the counter. Regulars order it without being prompted. They eat, pay the standard price, and leave a comment card or a verbal note. No discount is offered, which keeps the feedback honest.
In Australia, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission requires that test products and surveys avoid misleading inducements, and Jun's approach mirrors that spirit. A regular who knows they are tasting a work-in-progress, and is not paid to flatter, gives a chef a reliable signal.
From kitchen notebook to counter
A new recipe at MEN-EIJI usually arrives as a half-page of scribbled notes. Jun writes down the bones he wants, the target depth of flavour, and the season he has in mind. The broth is tested first in small pots, then in the full 60-litre vessels, and only when he is personally satisfied does the bowl reach a regular's table.
The first tasting is rarely the public one. Jun invites two or three trusted regulars, often by leaving a note on the counter with their name. He watches them eat, then asks one question: does this taste like something you would order again? A second tasting follows a week later, and if both lean positive, the bowl moves to the wider regular audience.
The Duck Ramen EIJI counter, listed on the EIJI location page, runs the same rehearsal pattern with its duck-based bowls, adjusting tare and oil layer until regulars nod.
The staged approach protects the small business. A broth that flops in front of a regular circle is unlikely to survive a Saturday dinner rush, and the kitchen catches the problem before it reaches the printed menu.
What regulars are asked to notice
Jun keeps the tasting prompt narrow. Regulars are asked four things: does the aroma match the bowl's name? Does the noodle carry the soup without slipping? Does the topping feel balanced? Would you walk past another ramen shop to come back for this?
The fourth question is the one Jun trusts most. A regular who would choose this bowl over a closer competitor signals genuine loyalty. A regular who would order it once and drift back to the signature gyokai-tonkotsu signals that the new bowl is pleasant but not yet essential.
Regulars also flag texture and temperature. Jun learned this from a Melbourne-based ramen chef who staged at MEN-EIJI in 2023 and who now runs a counter in Fitzroy. Australian diners often want their broth a few degrees warmer than the Japanese standard, a small adjustment that has become a quiet test point for every new recipe that leaves the Sapporo kitchen.
A short comparison: regular tasting versus professional review
The grid below sets Jun's method against the kind of structured review an Australian food critic might write. Both have value, but they answer different questions about the same bowl of ramen.
| Question | Regular-tasting panel | Professional reviewer |
|---|---|---|
| Who chooses the verdict? | Three to five named regulars | One critic with a byline |
| What is measured? | Repeat-order intent and texture memory | Composition, technique, narrative |
| How often does feedback arrive? | Twice per tasting, over two to three weeks | Once, on publication |
| What is the main bias to manage? | Familiarity with the house style | Distance from the house style |
| What does success look like? | A bowl ordered three nights running | A printed review of three paragraphs |
| What does failure cost? | A few evenings of broth and noodles | A quieter week in the dining room |
The two systems measure different signals. A regular's verdict answers the question "would I come back tomorrow?" A critic's verdict answers the question "is this worth a detour for a stranger?" Jun reads both, but he writes the menu from the regulars.
Pop-ups, time zones, and the taste of distance
Jun has run pop-ups in Taipei, Singapore, Sydney, and Melbourne, and each one stretched his notion of who counts as a regular. In Sydney, he served a half-finished shoyu at a small venue in Surry Hills and watched a kitchen-hand order it three nights in a row. That kitchen-hand, now running his own ramen counter in Newtown, has become a long-distance regular whose notes still arrive by email.
Time zones complicate the feedback cycle. A new recipe tested in Sapporo on a Tuesday lunchtime may reach a Sydney regular's inbox by Tuesday evening Australian Eastern Standard Time, and Jun replies before his own Wednesday morning begins. The half-day gap keeps impressions sharp.
Australian food labelling rules shape how Jun writes his notes for international events. The Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code requires that allergens and certain claims be declared in plain language, which has trained him to be specific in his recipe briefs. A note that reads "soy sauce, mirin, niboshi" in Sapporo becomes "fermented wheat and soy sauce, sweetened rice wine, dried sardine" when it travels south.
The same discipline shows up in the Hiragishi BASE notes, where the language stays short and honest about what each bowl contains.
Why small menus need feedback loops
MEN-EIJI keeps its printed menu to fewer than ten bowls. Jun believes a small list, refreshed slowly, is more honest than a long list frozen in time. Small menus, however, carry higher risk per dish, and the regular-tasting habit spreads that risk across dozens of small judgments rather than a single dramatic verdict.
The same logic applies to Australian ramen operators in Brisbane and Perth. Brisbane's growing scene includes several single-shop owners who rotate a "ramen of the week" slot, and Perth operators face longer supply chains where a failed test bowl costs more in imported bone and freight.
Feedback loops also keep a kitchen calm. A chef who trusts a small circle of regulars is less tempted to chase food trends. Jun has turned down several collaborations with hot-sauce brands after his regulars told him the house broth should remain mild. The decision cost a sponsorship cheque and earned the kitchen a steadier trade.
Habits worth borrowing at home and behind the counter
Jun's method is portable. Australian home cooks and professional chefs can borrow the rhythm without rebuilding their kitchens, and the same habits travel from a Sapporo counter to a small Brisbane shop to a suburban kitchen in Adelaide.
When you eat a new bowl, the instincts of a Jun regular travel well:
- Notice the aroma before the first sip. A bowl that smells like its name is already half right.
- Eat the noodles before they soften. The first thirty seconds tell you whether the tare and the flour balance.
- Pause halfway through. The flavour should still hold when the broth has cooled a few degrees.
- Ask yourself the regular's question: would you walk past another shop for this bowl tomorrow?
- Speak up. A short, specific note to the chef helps more than a polite smile.
- Return a second time. One sitting is an impression; two is a verdict.
When you run the kitchen side, the discipline is just as compact:
- Change one element per tasting. Multiple changes make the notes harder to read.
- Keep the prompt narrow. A long questionnaire tires regulars and dilutes the answer.
- File the feedback. A drawer, a spreadsheet, or a notebook all work; what matters is that the notes return to the kitchen.
- Tell the regular what changed. A reply, however short, keeps the loop honest.
- Protect the signature bowl. New recipes should live beside the house broth, not in place of it.
If the idea of a kitchen that listens to its regulars appeals to you, MEN-EIJI's two Sapporo counters are the most direct way to taste the result. The Hiragishi BASE kitchen, where many of the new-recipe tastings begin, sits inside a converted warehouse in Toyohira Ward and runs a short lunch service that rotates quietly with the season. The Duck Ramen EIJI counter, a short tram ride away, applies the same habit to duck-based bowls and serves a slightly different audience. A weekday lunch visit gives you the chance to ask which bowl is the current test version, and the staff are happy to share the story.