Smart Idea: College Students at Auraria Can Now Get Instant Ramen, Instantly

Think of instant ramen, and many people think of college cuisine.  For decades, instant ramen has been a staple of late-night study sessions and post-partying parties. The bracing warmth, salty umami and comforting carbo-load from the rehydrated noodles have made ramen a must-hoard staple in dorm rooms and apartments since the 1960s.

Today, ramen can cost $20 or more in a restaurant (and that price doesn't buy you authenticity), but a pack of the dry, instant stuff is still a bargain. For decades, Japanese companies dominated with brands like Nissin Top Ramen or Sapporo Ichiban; the true explosion in low-cost instant ramen came in 1971, when Momofuku Ando — the inventor of the original Nissin Chikin Ramen in 1958, with dehydrated noodles that boiled in a saucepan with powdered flavorings added for a meal — unveiled his latest invention: Cup Noodles. Heaven for college students!

Now, students (and everyone else) at the Auraria campus — which serves the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver and Community College of Denver — can enjoy the magical modern convenience of instant ramen. Ichigo Matcha, which already has two food kiosks on 16th Street serving ice cream, boba drinks and Japanese-style sandwiches, has installed walls of instant ramen in two shops on the campus where you can cook your own custom order in minutes.
Ichigo Matcha owner Emma Lkhagvajav had been parking a food truck on the campus. According to Alyssa Nilemo, deputy chief activation officer for Auraria, that truck had been a consistent top-selling vendor with the school community.

"It's done really well; she just absolutely crushed it on campus," Nilemo says, as students mill around the entrance to an Ichigo Matcha shop on their first day back at school. "And then she let one of our team members know that she really wanted a brick-and-mortar spot. And we were like, well, you're one of our best-grossing food trucks. We would be definitely open to that."

So this week, Lkhagvajav launched two Ichigo Matcha spots: in the North Classroom Building and the Administration Building.

The main part of the North Classroom space looks like a typical boba and ice cream, dessert-focused store. But to the left is an entire wall covered with stacks of a dizzying variety of instant ramen packages, and next to that are high-tech cooking contraptions that look like modified coffeemakers with a heating element in the base. Customers choose their ramen, place the noodles in a specially-designed cardboard bowl that works with the heating element, open the little packs of soup base and dried vegetables and chili oil into the bowl, press a button and voila! The machine pours water into the bowl, then heats it to boiling so that with a couple of minutes of stirring, the ramen is ready to slurp.

Across the room is a cooler case with toppings for the ramen that cost from under a buck to a couple of dollars, such as a raw egg, bean sprouts, sliced Spam, tofu, fish cake, Krab, kimchi, corn and more.
Lkhagvajav is a Mongolian immigrant, but she has acquired credentials in the local Japanese food world, having worked at Sushi Den and Ototo for Toshi Kizaki, the godfather of local Japanese restaurants. She wanted to open her own business, though, and the 16th Street kiosks allowed her to build up her reputation, acquire a food truck and now open shops on the Auraria campus.

Though the ramen is the shiny new item to show off, she's also going to begin serving "sandos," or Japanese sandwiches, after she starts baking shokupan, the pillowy Japanese milk bread that is a foundation for the sandwiches sold in Japan's ubiquitous convenience stores. Unlike at the food truck, she doesn't have a kitchen here to fry items like chicken for sandwiches. But she'll work around her limitations.

"We can sell fruit. I have an Ichigo Sando," she notes, so she will be selling her popular strawberry sandwich and other fruit sandwiches from the kiosks. But for now, the ramen-making units should keep her plenty busy serving her collegiate customers.
There's an Ichigo Matcha in the North Classroom Building, 1200 Larimer Street, and the Administration Building, 1201 Fifth Street, on the Auraria Campus; both are open for business 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.