Sydney foodies fall for fake Surry Hills ramen restaurant

A prank has highlighted just how ridiculous Sydney’s food scene has become, with hundreds of people queuing for two-minute noodles at a pop-up in Surry Hills.

Hundreds of Sydneysiders have queued in the cold for fake ramen.

In July a TikTok video by so-called pop up restaurant Nise Janagaru went viral after claiming it had travelled the world holding private ramen tasting and was now giving away 70 free bowls of ramen in Sydney’s Surry Hills. Subsequently, eager foodies queued for hours in the cold to try the dish.

However the entire set-up was a prank.

A huge queue for a pop up Ramen restaurant in Sydney. Picture: Robert White

The ramen was instant noodles and the video, which claimed “We treat Ramen like art and just like art we believe that everyone should be able to access our ramen,” was the work of youtuber Stanley Chen.

In the viral video, the restaurant claimed “We’ve been travelling around the world holding free private ramen tasting since 1943 and this year we’ve decided to go public for the first time in Australia.”

Chen said the stunt was aimed at poking fun at expensive restaurants, whose charge a lot for food that might not match the price tag.

“It was kind of a dig at restaurants that market themselves as really high quality, but they’re kind of just selling it as the experience instead of what the actual food is … those restaurants that are kind of over the top, but just charge egregious amounts of money,” Mr Chen said.

The free ramen was actually two minute noodles.

For those who felt cheated by the prank, Mr Chen said he apologies.

“I intentionally chose not to charge so hopefully people don’t feel cheated. We actually ran this event at a hefty loss since it was free,” he said.

“We also tried to manage the line as best as possible so apologies to everyone that didn’t get in.”

This isn’t the first time a fake restaurant has been created.

In 2017, journalist Oobah Butler made his shed the top restaurant on TripAdvisor. He posted fake food photos, including using his own food to pose as breakfast meats and posted fake reviews. Butler ended up opening a faux restaurant for one night, for 10 guests, serving them ready made meals.