Adapting Men-Eiji's signature broth for global pop-up climates
In the quiet lanes of Sapporo, a city famous for its deep winters and even deeper bowls of ramen, Jun Furukawa has spent more than two decades refining a single obsession. His gyokai-tonkotsu broth, a slow-simmered marriage of pork bones and seafood, anchors the menu at both Men-Eiji Hiragishi BASE and Duck Ramen EIJI, two locations that draw queues from breakfast through last orders. The same broth has also travelled, popping up in cities from Singapore to Sydney, where a Sapporo-style bowl can land in front of a diner who has never felt a Hokkaido windchill.
Pop-ups are not concerts. They are logistical and gustatory puzzles, and the broth is the hardest variable to control. Once a cauldron of pork femurs and niboshi has been bubbling for sixteen hours, it carries the fingerprints of its water, its altitude and the surrounding air. Furukawa treats those fingerprints as a feature, not a flaw. Every city, every season, every temporary kitchen pushes his team to recalibrate the balance between richness, salinity and aroma, so a bowl eaten in a humid Brisbane warehouse feels as deliberate as one served in a snow-dusted Sapporo alley.
The science of taste shifts more than most chefs admit. Sweetness registers differently at 35 degrees, salt perception dulls in dry heat, and umami can flatten when a diner is dehydrated. These are not abstract concerns when a queue stretches out the door and the ticket time is twelve minutes. They are the difference between a bowl that lingers in memory and one that lingers on the bench.
Australia, in particular, keeps the Men-Eiji kitchen on its toes. The country spans temperate Melbourne winters, subtropical Brisbane summers and arid Perth afternoons, all within the same national touring schedule. Local diners also bring their own rituals, from the late-night ramen habit in Sydney to the weekend food-festival pilgrimages in Adelaide. Catering to that range without losing the broth's Hokkaido soul is the work that makes each pop-up distinct.
The bones of the broth and why they breathe
A traditional gyokai-tonkotsu is rarely just two things. Men-Eiji's base layers pork marrow bones, trotters and occasionally neck with dried sardine, bonito flakes and a whisper of kombu, the resulting liquid walking a tightrope between oceanic depth and porcine warmth. Furukawa credits the broth's travel-readiness to this layered architecture. When one note gets muted by a new environment, another can be turned up without rebuilding the whole cauldron.
The team uses a base concentrate shipped from Sapporo, then revives it on site with local water and finishing ingredients. That concentrate is forgiving because it carries both water-soluble collagen and a long-aged stock of free amino acids, the glutamate, inosinate and guanylate trio that delivers umami. Those compounds survive a flight, a ferry or a long drive across the Nullarbor, but they read differently depending on how warm, dry or breathless the room feels when the bowl hits the table.
At home in Hiragishi, the broth is boiled harder, skimmed less, and finished with a slick of back fat that would feel heavy in any climate that isn't bracingly cold. The pop-up version starts from the same concentrate but is treated as a draft, with aromatics, salt and fat dialed up or down the way a sound engineer equalises a room. It is less about abandoning the original recipe and more about letting it sit forward or step back, depending on the air around it.
Cold-climate showings: from Sapporo to a Melbourne winter
Hokkaido's winter is the broth's home turf. When the temperature drops below minus ten and a diner walks in with frosted eyebrows, the bowl needs to be an event of warmth, both physiological and emotional. The Sapporo kitchen pushes the fat ratio up, lets the tare run a little sweeter, and finishes with a longer-aged aromatic oil. The body of the broth becomes a coat, and the salt reads sharper because the diner's palate is partially numbed by the cold.
Melbourne, the southern Australian capital, throws a milder version of the same problem. Winter here is wet rather than white, with grey skies sweeping in from Port Phillip Bay and a damp chill that settles into clothes. At a pop-up staged during a city festival in mid-July, the Men-Eiji team leaned into a richer profile, but with a slightly brighter citrus finish. The heavier fat would have felt greasy under a Brisbane sun, but on a Coburg evening with sideways rain, it landed as comfort.
Taste perception in cold air is a quiet cheat code. Diners crave more salt, more fat and deeper caramelised notes, which is why a winter pop-up can push the broth harder than a summer one. Furukawa's team monitors the local forecast as carefully as the music lineup, because the two together determine how dense the bowl needs to be.
| Climate condition | Fat ratio adjustment | Salt level | Finishing touch | Typical pop-up city |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cold and dry (sub-zero) | High, glossy layer | Slightly raised | Aged garlic oil, longer tare | Sapporo, alpine events |
| Cool and wet winter | Medium-high | Standard | Yuzu zest, light chilli | Melbourne, Hobart |
| Warm and humid | Medium-low | Slightly reduced | Citrus, fresh herbs, lighter tare | Brisbane, Singapore |
| Hot and arid | Low | Boosted (perception flattens) | Smoky aroma, charred negi | Perth, inland festivals |
Heat, humidity and high altitudes
When the calendar tilts toward summer, the broth is asked to do the opposite of what it does in Sapporo. Brisbane's subtropical January can push past 32 degrees with humidity to match, and Singapore's year-round climate sits permanently in that zone. A heavy, collagen-thick bowl in those conditions reads as a punishment, no matter how well it has been made. The fix is not to thin the broth but to make it breathe.
At warmer pop-ups, the team trims the back fat by a third and finishes with brighter aromatics. Yuzu kosho might replace a heavier miso tare. Spring onions are sliced finer so they release their sulphur more gently, and a small amount of citrus zest is grated over the bowl at service to lift the first sip off the tongue. The aim is the same depth of flavour, but the entry point is lighter, almost like a first draught of cold water after a long day.
Altitude and aridity add their own wrinkles. Pop-ups in places like Perth's dry heat, or at high-elevation partner events, change how salt is perceived. Salt can taste muted when the palate is dry, so the team will sometimes push the salinity by a small percentage and counterbalance it with a touch of acidity. The result is a bowl that still tastes like Men-Eiji but acknowledges that the diner is sweating through a linen shirt rather than walking through snow.
Sourcing proteins on the road
The broth may travel as a concentrate, but the toppings must be fresh. At every Australian stop, the team works with local suppliers to source pork, eggs and seasonal vegetables, a habit that keeps the menu tied to the place it is being served. For a Sydney pop-up, that has meant heritage-breed pork from a Hunter Valley farm and line-caught squid from the NSW coast. In Melbourne, the kitchen has leaned on nearby producers who already supply some of the city's most demanding izakayas.
Protein sourcing also dictates the smoke and char finishes. Pork shoulder, chashu and even the duck served at the sister shop, Duck Ramen EIJI, all benefit from a careful char, and the team has been known to collaborate with pitmasters when the local scene allows. A weekend pairing with a respected smokehouse such as Ronnie's BBQ gives the pop-up a chance to layer real wood-fired depth over the broth, an addition that has been especially well received at outdoor festivals where the air is already fragrant with charcoal.
Sourcing locally is not only a flavour strategy. It also shortens the cold chain, reduces waste and keeps the pop-up economically sustainable in markets where imported Japanese ingredients are expensive. Diners notice when a tomato tastes like the next suburb rather than a container ship, and that kind of locality has become a quiet expectation at Australian food events.
Listening to local palates and dietary needs
Australian diners arrive at a ramen counter with a wider set of questions than a Hokkaido regular might. Allergies to shellfish, gluten-free requests, halal considerations, and a strong flexitarian culture all shape how a pop-up menu is planned. Furukawa's team treats these as design problems rather than obstacles, and the Sapporo kitchen has spent years building a matrix of substitutes for the seafood elements that normally anchor the gyokai side of the broth.
In Australia, that preparation pays off. A Sydney diner who cannot eat shellfish is not handed a sad bowl of plain tonkotsu. They are served a version where the bonito and niboshi are replaced with a kombu and dried mushroom reduction, a swap developed over many service trials. The team has also begun offering a completely pork-bone-free chicken-seafood broth for guests who avoid pork for religious reasons, a small but meaningful gesture at multicultural events.
A detailed look at how the kitchen manages these requests, including a recent overhaul of the allergen sheet, lives in the brand's allergy accommodation update. The piece walks through the exact swaps used for crustacean, gluten and pork-free diners and explains why the concentrate is now portioned before service to prevent cross-contact.
That kind of transparency matters in a market where food labelling is taken seriously and where festival-goers will read every line on a temporary menu board. By the time a bowl lands in front of an Australian diner, the broth has been rebalanced for the room, the toppings have been sourced within driving distance, and the dietary profile has been checked twice. It is a lot of work for a bowl that disappears in fifteen minutes, but the team considers that bowl to be the whole point.
If a Hokkaido-style bowl sounds like the right way to round out a winter evening in Melbourne or a long afternoon in Brisbane, the most direct path is still to book a seat at one of the two Sapporo locations, Men-Eiji Hiragishi BASE or Duck Ramen EIJI, where the concentrate has not had to fly. For those who cannot make the trip, the pop-up calendar is updated on the website whenever a new Australian or international stop is confirmed, and tickets usually open through the partner venues a few weeks in advance.