By William Stolerman

A Japanese restaurateur has created the ultimate luxury, comfort food – the $110 ramen. It takes three days to prepare and by all accounts is rather wonderful.

The "Five-taste Blend Imperial Noodles" offered at Tokyo's Fujimaki Gekijyo restaurant is a noodle soup like no other which uses more than 20 different ingredients. The broth is made from a top-grade Chinese stock blended with another stock inspired by the spicy, Thai tom yum soup as well as spices, meats and vegetables.

The owner, Shoichi Fujimaki said: "It's not really ramen. This is my cuisine, it's my 25 years of experience distilled into one bowl. This is the only place in the world that people have this kind of soup."

Initially the restaurant sold a ramen dish with more than your average toppings for $33, and considering a bowl of ramen typically sells in the city's other shops for $10 at the most - that was quite a jump in itself. But then Fujimaki decided to go one step further and create an even more complex dish with an even higher price tag.

He justified the move by saying: "I believe that this is indeed the number one noodle soup in the world."

One 49-year old diner, Hideko Furusawa, agreed with him: "It's certainly expensive, however, I think that it is sometimes better to come here and spend ten thousand yen than to go to another place and spend a thousand, ten times."

The elite ramen is served at his reservations-only eatery that has no menu and which customers can only dine in after they sample cheaper fare at another restaurant he owns.

It's as exclusive a ramen as you're going to find.

Via [reuters ]