How Men-Eiji's menu evolves with each season's local produce
Sapporo's MEN-EIJI RAMEN is a small ramen house built on a single, deeply considered bowl. The broth is a gyokai-tonkotsu that simmers for hours, layering pork bones with seafood stock until the surface shimmers with collagen. Yet a bowl here is never fixed. The toppings, oils, and aromatics shift quietly through the year, guided by what the land and sea around Hokkaido can offer that week. For diners visiting from Australia, where the seasons run in reverse, this rhythm becomes a window into a culinary calendar they rarely get to taste.
Founder Jun Furukawa built the brand around a quietly stubborn idea: a great bowl should taste like the moment it was made. After training in Sapporo and working through the pop-up circuit across Asia, he returned to Hokkaido with a notebook full of supplier names, fishing port schedules, and farmer friendships. Two restaurants now carry his name in Sapporo - MEN-EIJI Hiragishi BASE and Duck Ramen EIJI - and both rotate their menu four times a year, occasionally slipping in a special fifth season tied to a particularly generous harvest.
Australia is a meaningful audience for this kind of thinking. In Melbourne and Sydney, ramen has moved from late-night novelty to serious weekday dinner, and diners are increasingly curious about provenance, technique, and the people behind the counter. The Queen Victoria Market and the Sydney Fish Market have trained local palates to ask where the ingredient came from and when it was caught, which is precisely the conversation a seasonal Men-Eiji menu invites.
Because Australia's autumn arrives when Hokkaido's spring is just waking, travellers planning around a season's debut can time their visit to a menu they could not find anywhere else. The kitchen reads the same weather reports farmers read, and responds with toppings that are, by design, fleeting.
Rooted in Hokkaido, reaching across the Pacific
Furukawa's supply network begins before sunrise. He works with small cooperatives in the mountains around Yoichi and with fishing families along the coast near Otaru, taking whatever arrives in good condition. The broth itself stays consistent, but the support cast - the oil sheen, the aroma oil, the tare, the freshly cut garnish - is rewritten each season. Spring lamb shoulder arrives from inland Hokkaido, while scallops come off boats at dawn in early winter.
The same approach has resonated far beyond Sapporo. Furukawa has run pop-ups in Singapore and Bangkok, but Australian chefs and diners in Melbourne follow the brand with particular interest, partly because Tasmanian scallops, sea urchin from the south coast, and Tasmanian-grown mushrooms sit closer in spirit to Hokkaido produce than almost any other source in the world. The kitchen treats these shared cool-climate affinities as both inspiration and a quiet responsibility.
This philosophy also reflects a broader shift in how Australians approach food. A growing number of restaurants in Fitzroy, Surry Hills, and Brunswick now print their menu by the week, sourcing directly from growers in the Yarra Valley or along the Sapphire Coast. Men-Eiji belongs to that same school of cooking, simply expressed through a bowl of ramen.
| Season | Featured local produce | Typical topping or oil | Flavour character |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spring | Wild sansai (fuki, warabi), young bamboo, snow crab from Okhotsk | Sansai oil with yuzu zest | Green, grassy, bright, lightly bitter |
| Summer | Hokkaido kelp varieties, scallop roe, shiso flower | Citrus-anchovy aroma oil | Cool, saline, restrained, gently sweet |
| Autumn | Hatake mushrooms, nameko, Hokkaido chestnuts | Smoked soy and mushroom oil | Earthy, umami-deep, woodsy |
| Winter | Yubari king scallop, fatty pork back fat, slow-roasted duck | Duck fat or pork fat oil | Rich, fatty, deeply savoury, almost candied |
Spring's first, fleeting bites
Spring at Men-Eiji begins when snow still lingers in the foothills. The first fuki buds arrive wrapped in damp newspaper from mountain growers, followed by young bamboo shoots cut small enough to slice raw over noodles. The kitchen pairs these with the year's first snow crab from the Sea of Okhotsk, a delicate, sweet meat that asks for very little.
The broth stays recognisably the same, but the finishing oil changes. A pale-green sansai oil, made by steeping fuki and warabi in rice bran oil with a whisper of yuzu zest, replaces the heavier aroma oils of winter. Diners notice the difference immediately: the bowl tastes awake.
Back in Australia, spring tastes a little different - Tasmanian wasabi, Warratina saffron, and the first native finger limes begin to show up at Queen Victoria Market stalls in September. Men-Eiji's spring menu reminds Australian cooks that the same shape of awakening happens a season earlier in the southern hemisphere, and that timing is part of the ingredient.
Summer's lighter footprint
Summer in Hokkaido is short and surprisingly cool, more like a European August than a tropical July. The kitchen leans into this. Rishiri kelp and kombu from the southern coast get rehydrated and folded through toppings, bringing a clean marine sweetness that cuts through the broth's weight. Scallop roe, when the boats bring it in, gets whisked into a quick sauce for the bowl.
The hot months in Australia arrive during Hokkaido's high summer too, but Australian chefs visiting the Sapporo kitchens have noted that the brand's summer bowls feel closer to a Sydney winter bowl - lighter, more aromatic, more about salinity than richness. Shiso flower and chilled sliced cucumber often sit on top of the noodles, with a citrus-anchovy aroma oil poured tableside.
The menu also makes room for chilled tsukemen in July and August, an off-menu twist that uses the same gyokai-tonkotsu base but serves it cold with thick noodles and a denser dipping sauce. Locally, ramen chefs in Surry Hills and Carlton have started writing similar summer specials into their rotations, a quiet echo of Men-Eiji's seasonal thinking.
Autumn drift into the forest
Autumn is Furukawa's favourite season, and the menu shows it. Hatake mushrooms - the squat, fragrant king of Hokkaido's forests - arrive in shallow wooden boxes from inland growers, often still dusted with pine needles. Nameko mushrooms join the rotation in late October, their tiny gelatinous caps adding texture rather than flavour.
The aroma oil turns smoky. A soy-mushroom reduction, made by slow-cooking dried shiitake with smoked soy and a touch of rendered pork fat, gets drizzled over the noodles. Hokkaido chestnuts, sometimes roasted and crumbled, sit on top in the final weeks of November, adding a soft sweetness that balances the broth's salt.
This is the season that travels best back to Australia. Tasmania grows a remarkable range of mushrooms, and Manjimup truffles come into season just as Hokkaido's autumn bowls are at their peak. Australian readers who cook at home can borrow the same technique - smoked soy over folded mushrooms on hot noodles - with whatever the local market provides.
Winter indulgence and quiet excess
Winter is when Men-Eiji plays to its strengths. The broth reaches its deepest expression, simmered longer and finished with a generous slick of pork back fat. Yubari king scallops - large, sweet, almost custard-like - are seared briefly and laid across the noodles. At Duck Ramen EIJI, the secondary brand, slow-roasted duck breast replaces the usual chashu, and a duck fat oil becomes the finishing touch.
The winter bowl is intentionally heavier, designed to warm a body walking out of a Sapporo snowstorm. The kitchen also reintroduces the Men-Eiji's pork bones story on its menu card, inviting diners to understand why the broth takes eighteen hours to reach its winter form. It is a rare moment when the kitchen slows down long enough to teach.
For Australians reading this in July or August, this winter menu will feel like a curious mirror. Their local winter brings pumpkin, brassicas, and slow-braised meats, but the techniques - long simmers, fat-rich finishes, deeply savoury broths - translate directly. A Sydney cook who has never tasted Hokkaido winter can still recognise the comfort.
Eating Men-Eiji's seasons: practical suggestions
- Book the Hiragishi BASE counter seats for spring and autumn; the open kitchen is the best way to watch sansai or mushrooms hit the oil.
- Ask the kitchen, on arrival, which season's bowl is at its peak that week - the answer often changes mid-trip.
- Pair a winter visit with the Duck Ramen EIJI location for the roasted duck variation, then return to the BASE for a lighter summer tsukemen on a later trip.
- Australians visiting in June or July should plan around the Australian winter for comparison, and ask the staff how the menu would adapt for a Melbourne or Sydney palate.
- Try the sansai oil in spring with a side of gyoza; the green oil doubles as a dipping sauce and showcases the season in miniature.
- Save room for the rotating seasonal tsukemen if travelling between July and September, as the kitchen only offers it during the warmest weeks.
Sapporo waits at the other end of a long flight, and the bowl that arrives will be shaped by the week you chose to come. Watch the season announcements on the MEN-EIJI website before booking, then let the menu surprise you. A bowl of ramen, eaten at the right moment, is the closest a traveller can get to tasting a place's weather.