Ramen Beast vs Chef ARV
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Ramen Beast
Discover Tokyo's finest ramen shops with this connoisseur's guide. Get English and Japanese recommendations for over 700 unique establishments, including ordering tips and shop details. Navigate by style, from traditional to innovative.
- Discover 700+ Tokyo ramen shops
- English and Japanese ordering recommendations
- Navigate by ramen style categories
- In-depth shop reviews
- Essential shop information (hours, address)
- Curated, non-chain recommendations
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Ramen Beast is a connoisseur's guide to the very best ramen shops of Japan. Over 10,000 bowls (and counting) were eaten to create this app. Only the finest shops are included (no chains, no tourist traps). Ramen Beast does one simple thing: It directs you to the best ramen in Japan. We are obsessive about our recommendations and information. We've spent years eating across Japan. This app was created to share that knowledge. APP FEATURES: — Discover more than 2,000 of Japan's very best ramen shops, spanning the traditional, exquisite, innovative, beastly and downright bizarre. — Get recommendations in English and Japanese on which bowl to order at every shop. — In depth review of every shop, including details of shop specialty, chef's history, specialty ingredients, basic ordering tips, ramen lore and more. — Essential info: shop address, ramen style, star rating and more. Follow The Ramen Beast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ramen_beast/ Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ramenbeast
Chef ARV
Discover personalized daily menus, explore recipes by ingredient or mood, and plan meals with a smart shopping list. Learn cooking techniques and food science, or engage in gamified culinary challenges. Hands-free Cook Mode offers giant steps and auto-timers for a seamless cooking experience.
- Daily auto-generated menus
- Fuzzy recipe search
- Pantry ingredient matcher
- 2-week meal planner
- Smart shopping list
- Cooking lessons and food science
- Hands-free Cook Mode with auto-timers
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The five tabs Today — an editorial home screen: a daily auto-generated menu (breakfast→dessert, rerollable), the daily Taste Test, technique-of-the-day, what's in season, plus a kitchen tip and food fact. Discover — instant fuzzy search (accent-aware, ingredient/cuisine/dish), 15 mood collections ("Ready in 15", "Date Night", "Bring the Heat"), a cuisine passport, and a "what can I cook?" pantry matcher that ranks recipes by what you already have and lists what's missing. Plan — a 2-week meal planner with auto-fill, and a smart shopping list that auto-categorizes (Produce/Meat/Dairy/…) and dedupes. Learn — an Academy of 16 cooking lessons + 12 food-science deep-dives, plus a Kitchen-IQ toolkit (40 flavor pairings, 32 substitutions, cup↔gram + °F↔°C converters, doneness temps, seasonal guide). Chef — gamified progression: XP, 8 ranks, 20 badges, cooking streaks, a cooking journal, and a culinary passport tracking which of the 47 cuisines you've actually cooked. The flagship: hands-free Cook Mode Giant readable steps, a progress bar, and timers that auto-detect durations from the recipe text ("sauté for 5 minutes" → one-tap live countdown with a chime), plus serving scaling (½×–3×), keep-screen-awake, and a finish celebration with confetti, XP, and a journal entry.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Chef ARV at 5.0 against Ramen Beast's 4.4. Chef ARV also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 2) and review sentiment (100% vs 67%). Ramen Beast's advantage is ratings volume (24 vs 2). On price, ads, monetization model and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Ramen Beast sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Chef ARV asks for nothing beyond the download.
Chef ARV holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Ramen Beast has 24 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 67% of Ramen Beast's written reviews are positive against 100% of Chef ARV's.
Ramen Beast ships an update every 9 months, Chef ARV daily. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Ramen Beast | Chef ARV |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (24 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 24 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 9 months | Daily — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 16 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Patrick Brzeski | Antonio Reyes |
Customer experience
Ramen Beast
Chef ARV
In-app purchases
Ramen Beast
- Lists – Monthly$4.991 Month
- Lists – Yearly$39.991 Year
Chef ARV
No in-app purchases









