You Won’t Believe How Much The World’s Priciest Ramen Costs

These are some high-class noodles.

Across our great nation, ramen is known as the food staple that’s reliably affordable, no matter how strapped for cash you might be. According to The Daily Californian, if you ate instant ramen three times a day for an entire year, it would only cost $140 a year. (But just imagine all those carbs!)

New York City may well be the ramen capital of America, where the traditional Japanese noodle and broth combo is taken as seriously as the finest gourmet cuisine. Manhattan alone boasts a ridiculous number of top-shelf ramen meccas—Momofoku Noodle Bar, Ippudo, and Ivan Ramen among them—  that offer amazingly elevated takes on the dish. But none were as absurdly expensive as the $180 bowl at Manhattan Japanese restaurant KOA will begin serving May 2, which is laying claim to world’s most expensive ramen.

What makes this extravagant bowl by Japanese iron chef Yuji Wakiya so special? Here’s the restaurant’s take on why it’s so damn special:

As the world’s most expensive ramen, KOA’s noodles feature Japanese-imported Binchotan charcoal-grilled-to-order Japanese Kobe Wagyu steak topped with truffle and 24 karat gold leaf, Shantan broth (a special high-end broth made with chicken and pork), and seasonal green and white asparagus.

The ramen is served in special handmade bowls along with handmade chopsticks that the guest can take home. This special ramen is available beginning Monday, May 2nd.

 “This Kobe Wagyu Ramen dish is what we call the ‘kiwami’ ramen experience,” says KOA owner Keiko Aoki. “Kiwami means ultimate in Japanese.”  

Well, for $180, it better be. Sure, it’s no where near as expensive as other NYC stunt dishes like the $1,200 margarita, or the world-record setting $25,000 sundae, but it’s incredible that for the price of a single bowl of super luxe Asian pasta, you could feed yourself for an entire year by eating its instant counterpart, and still have enough leftover to go KOA and buy the second most expensive thing on the menu, the Lobster Sorba Ramen. 

What’s next, the world’s most expensive bottle of water? Oh, wait, that’s already happened.