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Ramen Quotes

“The only garnish for the noodles was sesame and spring onions. The two perfect squares of butter on top were already beginning to lose their shape in the clear broth, their outlines blurring messily. Beneath them floated the crinkled noodles with their strong yellow hue. Dissolved in the soup, the butter formed golden circles on its surface. Rika deliberately passed the noodles through those circles on their way to her mouth. The taste of lye water was a little strong, but they weren't badly cooked, and retained their bite. She sipped the soup. Against the faint chicken base of the stock she could detect the flavor of bonito. The broth was hot but it slipped down easily, lubricating her painfully dry throat. Alone, the cheap butter had an overly milky tang, but in combination with the noodles and the soup, its flavor grew golden and staked its territory, with a kind of violence. A certain depth of flavor began to assert itself, and as the droplets plummeted to the centre of her body, its arc of influence expanded. The back of her nose grew hot, and she reached for the tissue box on the counter. Feeling the moisture flowing, she blew her nose loudly. A film of butter was forming across her insides. The hot broth and the hot noodles were more assertive, more forceful than Makoto's warmth and smell. As she raised them to her mouth alternately, Rika's body regained more and more of its heat and softness. She was already warmer than she had been back in the hotel room.”

ButterRamenAfterglowAfter Sex
Book:Butter
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“Lobster tomalley fish innards! The richness of all the ingredients have melded into one powerful whole! What a robust, almost wild flavor! Next, let's try the broth together with the noodles... here I go! Ye gods! I have to hold myself together or I'll black out! As it is, that was nearly a knockout punch! Who knew umami flavor could be this powerfully violent! How about the toppings? I see three varieties of shredded cheese. Rouille... *Rouille is a type of aioli, usually consisting of olive oil, breadcrumbs and various spices like garlic and chili flakes. It, along with croutons and cheese, is a standard garnish to Soupe de Poisson.* And are those tempura flakes? Aha! He must have added those as a crouton analogue! And finally the rusk! It looks like it's been spread with Échiré butter and well toasted. Perhaps it was added as a palate cleanser for after that strong, rich broth. WHAT?! What an intense, aromatic flavor! But where is all of this coming from?! Hm? What are these pink flakes in the butter? Wait, now I see! Those shells he crushed! He had them dried to increase their umami flavor!" "It's about time you noticed. I added those powdered shells to everything in this dish, from the soup stock to the butter on the rusk." "See, the umami flavor in lobsters and shrimp comes from three elements: glycine, arginine and proline. Of all seafood, crustaceans carry the highest concentration of umami components, y'know. Since Ryo took that powdered lobster shell- chock full of those three umami components- and added it to every element of the dish... ... it's, like, only natural that it's flavor is going to have a strong umami punch.”

SeafoodLobsterButterRamenUmamiRyo KurokibaCrustaceanPoisson
Book:食戟のソーマ 9 [Shokugeki no Souma 9]
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“Irie serves me three ramens, including a bowl made with a rich dashi and head-on shrimp and another studded with spicy ground pork and wilted spinach and lashed with chili oil. Both are exceptionally delicious, sophisticated creations, but it's his interpretation of tonkotsu that leaves me muttering softly to myself. The noodles are firm and chewy, the roast pork is striped with soft deposits of warm fat, and the toppings- white curls of shredded spring onion, chewy strips of bamboo, a perfect square of toasted seaweed- are skillfully applied. Here it is the combination of tare, the culmination of years of careful tinkering, and broth, made from whole pig heads and knots of ginger, that defies the laws of tonkotsu: a soup with the savory, meaty intensity of a broth made from a thousand pigs that's light enough to leave you wanting more. And more. And more.”

PigsSoupFlavorToppingsRamenBaseRamen NoodlesFukuoka
Book:Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture
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“Kamimura has been whispering all week of a sacred twenty-four-hour ramen spot located on a two-lane highway in Kurume where truckers go for the taste of true ramen. The shop is massive by ramen standards, big enough to fit a few trucks along with those drivers, and in the midafternoon a loose assortment of castaways and road warriors sit slurping their noodles. Near the entrance a thick, sweaty cauldron boils so aggressively that a haze of pork fat hangs over the kitchen like waterfall mist. While few are audacious enough to claim ramen is healthy, tonkotsu enthusiasts love to point out that the collagen in pork bones is great for the skin. "Look at their faces!" says Kamimura. "They're almost seventy years old and not a wrinkle! That's the collagen. Where there is tonkotsu, there is rarely a wrinkle." He's right: the woman wears a faded purple bandana and sad, sunken eyes, but even then she doesn't look a day over fifty. She's stirring a massive cauldron of broth, and I ask her how long it's been simmering for. "Sixty years," she says flatly. This isn't hyperbole, not exactly. Kurume treats tonkotsu like a French country baker treats a sourdough starter- feeding it, regenerating, keeping some small fraction of the original soup alive in perpetuity. Old bones out, new bones in, but the base never changes. The mother of all ramen. Maruboshi Ramen opened in 1958, and you can taste every one of those years in the simple bowl they serve. There is no fancy tare, no double broth, no secret spice or unexpected toppings: just pork bones, noodles, and three generations of constant simmering. The flavor is pig in its purest form, a milky broth with no aromatics or condiments to mitigate the purity of its porcine essence.”

HealthySteamPorkFountain Of YouthRamenFukuokaWrinkle Removal
Book:Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture
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“Mr. Megishima has already begun the broth. First he minced some garlic... and then onion, red bell peppers and perfectly ripe tomatoes, building a flavor with a deeply complex acidity and body." "What sort of stock did you choose?" "Chicken. Already got it going in a stockpot. In fact... ... it should be just about ready." "MMMMMM!" "Just the scent of that stock is enough to make you fidget in anticipation!" "Man, I'd totally be happy just pouring that over some white rice and chowing down!" "With the base stock ready, I'll add the veggies I cut up... ... along with some drumettes and other stuff. Now to let 'em simmer in the pot until their flavors meld together. Then the broth'll be done." "Another point to watch is the Char Siu pork he put together a moment ago. He made certain to rub it with a certain marinade before binding it." "A special marinade?" "Yes. It was made with garlic, soy sauce, sugar, sake, and one more intriguing ingredient... PEANUTS! Those, I believe, will be the key to his entire dish! "?! Holy crap! What the heck is with that overflowing giant tub of red peppers?!" "Yes... he will use peanuts... ... to bring out every last drop of deliciousness red peppers possess!”

CookingVegetablesPeanutsPeppersAfricanRamenChicken SoupCayenne
Book:食戟のソーマ 26 [Shokugeki no Souma 26]
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“To be a ramen writer of Kamimura's stature, you need to live in a ramen town, and there is unquestionably no town in Japan more dedicated to ramen than Fukuoka. This city of 1.5 million along the northern coast of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four main islands, is home to two thousand ramen shops, representing Japan's densest concentration of noodle-soup emporiums. While bowls of ramen are like snowflakes in Japan, Fukuoka is known as the cradle of tonkotsu, a pork-bone broth made milky white by the deposits of fat and collagen extracted during days of aggressive boiling. It is not simply a specialty of the city, it is the city, a distillation of all its qualities and calluses. Indeed, tell any Japanese that you've been to Fukuoka and invariably the first question will be: "How was the tonkotsu?”

PorkJapanese FoodRamenBrothFukuoka
Book:Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture
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“Fukuoka, more than any other city in Japan, is responsible for ramen's rocket-ship trajectory, and the ensuing shift in Japan's cultural identity abroad. Between Hide-Chan, Ichiran, and Ippudo- three of the biggest ramen chains in the world- they've brought the soup to corners of the globe that still thought ramen meant a bag of dried noodles and a dehydrated spice packet. But while Ichiran and Ippudo are purveyors of classic tonkotsu, undoubtedly the defining ramen of the modern era, Hideto has a decidedly different belief about ramen and its mutability. "There are no boundaries for ramen, no rules," he says. "It's all freestyle." As we talk at his original Hide-Chan location in the Kego area of Fukuoka, a new bowl arrives on the table, a prototype for his borderless ramen philosophy. A coffee filter is filled with katsuobushi, smoked skipjack tuna flakes, and balanced over a bowl with a pair of chopsticks. Hideto pours chicken stock through the filter, which soaks up the katsuobushi and emerges into the bowl as clear as a consommé. He adds rice noodles and sawtooth coriander then slides it over to me. Compared with other Hide-Chan creations, though, this one shows remarkable restraint. While I sip the soup, Hideto pulls out his cell phone and plays a video of him layering hot pork cheeks and cold noodles into a hollowed-out porcelain skull, then dumping a cocktail shaker filled with chili oil, shrimp oil, truffle oil, and dashi over the top. Other creations include spicy arrabbiata ramen with pancetta and roasted tomatoes, foie gras ramen with orange jam and blueberry miso, and black ramen made with bamboo ash dipped into a mix of miso and onions caramelized for forty-five days.”

CookingFreestyleJapanese FoodRamenNo RulesTypesMiso SoupFukuoka
Book:Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture
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“Our neighborhood ramen place was called Aoba. That's a joke. There were actually more than fifty ramen places with in walking distance of our apartment. But this one was our favorite. Aoba makes a wonderful and unusual ramen with a mixture of pork and fish broth. The noodles are firm and chewy, and the pork tender and almost smoky, like ham. I also liked how they gave us a small bowl for sharing with Iris without our even asking. What I really appreciated about this place, however, were two aspects of ramen that I haven't mentioned yet: the eggs and the dipping noodles. After these two, I will stop, but there's so much more to ramen. Would someone please write an English-language book about ramen? Real ramen, not how to cook with Top Ramen noodles? Thanks. (I did find a Japanese-language book called State-of-the-Art Technology of Pork Bone Ramen on Amazon. Wish-listed!) One of the most popular ramen toppings is a soft-boiled egg. Long before sous vide cookery, ramen cooks were slow-cooking eggs to a precise doneness. Eggs for ramen (ajitsuke tamago) are generally marinated in a soy sauce mixture after cooking so the whites turn a little brown and the eggs turn a little sweet and salty. I like it best when an egg is plunked whole into the broth so I can bisect it with my chopsticks and reveal the intensely orange, barely runny yolk. A cool egg moistened with rich broth is alchemy. Forget the noodles; I want a ramen egg with a little broth for breakfast. Finding hot and cold in the same mouthful is another hallmark of Japanese summer food, and many ramen restaurants, including Aoba, feature it in the form of tsukemen, dipping noodles. Tsukemen is deconstructed ramen, a bowl of cold cooked noodles and a smaller bowl of hot, ultra-rich broth and toppings. The goal is to lift a tangle of noodles with your chopsticks and dip them in the bowl of broth on the way to your mouth. This is a crazy way to eat noodles and, unless you've been inculcated with the principles of noodle-slurping physics from birth, a great way to ruin your clothes.”

EggsFishPorkNoodlesToppingsRamenAoba
Book:Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo
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“In theory, toppings can include almost anything, but 95 percent of the ramen you consume in Japan will be topped with chashu, Chinese-style roasted pork. In a perfect world, that means luscious slices of marinated belly or shoulder, carefully basted over a low temperature until the fat has rendered and the meat collapses with a hard stare. Beyond the pork, the only other sure bet in a bowl of ramen is negi, thinly sliced green onion, little islands of allium sting in a sea of richness. Pickled bamboo shoots (menma), sheets of nori, bean sprouts, fish cake, raw garlic, and soy-soaked eggs are common constituents, but of course there is a whole world of outlier ingredients that make it into more esoteric bowls, which we'll get into later. While shape and size will vary depending on region and style, ramen noodles all share one thing in common: alkaline salts. Called kansui in Japanese, alkaline salts are what give the noodles a yellow tint and allow them to stand up to the blistering heat of the soup without degrading into a gummy mass. In fact, in the sprawling ecosystem of noodle soups, it may be the alkaline noodle alone that unites the ramen universe: "If it doesn't have kansui, it's not ramen," Kamimura says. Noodles and toppings are paramount in the ramen formula, but the broth is undoubtedly the soul of the bowl, there to unite the disparate tastes and textures at work in the dish. This is where a ramen chef makes his name. Broth can be made from an encyclopedia of flora and fauna: chicken, pork, fish, mushrooms, root vegetables, herbs, spices. Ramen broth isn't about nuance; it's about impact, which is why making most soup involves high heat, long cooking times, and giant heaps of chicken bones, pork bones, or both. Tare is the flavor base that anchors each bowl, that special potion- usually just an ounce or two of concentrated liquid- that bends ramen into one camp or another. In Sapporo, tare is made with miso. In Tokyo, soy sauce takes the lead. At enterprising ramen joints, you'll find tare made with up to two dozen ingredients, an apothecary's stash of dried fish and fungus and esoteric add-ons. The objective of tare is essentially the core objective of Japanese food itself: to pack as much umami as possible into every bite.”

SaltPorkNoodlesToppingsRamenRamen NoodlesFukuokaAlkalineSoup Bowl
Book:Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture
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“One giant bowl of perfectly cooked ramen in rich, golden pork broth, densely packed with noodles and with an egg, boiled to just the right degree of softness, perched on top, beneath a sprinkling of bright, crunchy green scallions. She could almost taste it, and feel it in her mouth, the rich glide of egg yolk, the chewy, toothsome tangle of noodles, the sharp bite of scallion, and the comforting warmth of the broth, as salty as the ocean.”

NoodlesEggRamenDeliciousnessScallions
Book:That Summer
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“Hmm... the noodles are good. I can taste the flour; their scent and flavor are clear, not masked by the smell of kansui. Ah, this is good broth. You used only chicken to make it. You did well with the condiments, too. You cannot get such a rich flavor unless you use condiments made from pure ingredients. And I see you used Chinese vinegar. Hmm. This barbecued pork is well made. It's Kurobuta from the Kagoshima prefecture that has been fed properly on sweet potatoes. The cucumber was organically grown, without pesticides or even herbicides. This egg is impressive too. Only a chicken that has been properly grass-fed in a healthy environment can lay an egg this good.”

ColdJapaneseVinegarNoodlesChinese FoodToppingsCondimentsRamen
Book:Ramen and Gyoza
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“I thought you said these were Chinese-style noodles... ...so I was expecting something with pork spareribs on top. The fish dumpling noodles in Hong Kong are good... but I've never seen anything like this in China. What's this on the top?" "Barbecued pork made from Berkshire boar, and jakoten." " 'Jakoten'? " "It's a specialty from the Shikoku prefecture. They're fish cakes made from ground sardines and deep-fried in oil. They're nutritious and taste good too." "Sardines, is it?" "Ah, this barbecued pork is completely different from Chinese-style barbecued pork!" "And this soup?" "I made the stock with pork bones and flying fish yakiboshi... ... and boosted the flavor with some miso and soy sauce. I don't use any MSG in it." "Hmm... the combination of pork bones and yakiboshi isn't something that a Chinese chef would have thought of." "I've never tasted a soup like this before!" "The noodles have no kansui in them. After kneading the dough with eggs... ... I let it rest for a whole week." "Mmm... they're firm and flavorful!" "I haven't seen noodles like this in China either!" "The aged noodles taste so good!”

SoupFishPorkNoodlesRamenJapanese CookingSardines
Book:Ramen and Gyoza
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“Thanks to the soy-sauce-based kaeshi sauce, the broth does have a clean aftertaste, yes... but you would never expect this strong and sweet an umami flavor just at a glance!" "How on earth could she- Oh! The vegetable toppings... I've seen this combination before... Kozuyu." "Kozuyu?" "Yes, sir! I made this dish based on Kozuyu but with a paitan stock and soy sauce for the kaeshi. It's Kozuyu Chicken Soy Sauce Ramen." KOZUYU It's a traditional delicacy local to the Aizu area in Northwestern Japan. A vegetable soup, its clear broth is made with scallop stock. Considered a ceremonial meal, it is often served in special bowls on auspicious days, such as festivals and holidays. "Oh, so that's what it is!" "She took a local delicacy and reimagined it as a ramen dish. How clever!" "The scallop and paitan stock forms a solid foundation for the overall flavor of the dish." "Who knew that ramen and Kozuyu would complement each other this well?" "It looks like she also used a blend of light soy sauce and white soy sauce for the kaeshi sauce." White soy sauce! While most Japanese soy sauces are made with a mix of soy and wheat... white soy sauce uses a much higher ratio of wheat to soy! This gives it a much sweeter taste and a far lighter color than regular soy sauce, which is why it's called white. Since Kozuyu broth is traditionally seasoned with soy sauce, using white soy sauce makes perfect sense! "But white soy sauce alone isn't enough to explain this umami flavor! Where on earth is it coming from?" "In this dish, the last, most important chunk of umami flavor... ... comes from the vegetables. The burdock root, shiitake mushrooms, string beans... every vegetable I used as a topping... were first dried and then simmered together with the broth!" Aha! That's right! Drying vegetables concentrates the umami flavors and increases their nutritional value! It also ameliorates their natural grassy pungency, giving them a flavor when cooked that is much different than what they had raw! Megumi has captured all of that umami goodness in her broth!”

VegetablesChickenRamenMegumi TadokoroSaucesSoy SauceUmamiScallop
Book:食戟のソーマ 9 [Shokugeki no Souma 9]
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“Even though hiyashi chūka is a dish that was developed in Japan, does it make a difference or not if one prepares it using Chinese ingredients? The most important things--- the noodles and the broth--- are both items borrowed from Chinese cuisine and are prepared using Chinese cooking methods. The barbecued pork on top is also Chinese-style. Which obviously means that Chinese condiments would be better suited to it. Chinese soy sauce and Japanese soy sauce taste different. The same goes for the sake and mirin. Shirō used the best ingredients he could get his hands on in Japan. That is perfectly fine as long as you're making Japanese food. But the Chinese condiments have a far better chemistry with the dish. Shirō paid great attention to each of the ingredients individually but neglected to consider the dish as a whole. Because the ingredients are Chinese, by using Chinese condiments... ... he was able to blend the flavors into one, which is impossible to do with Japanese condiments.”

ChineseJapaneseCondimentsRamenSoy Sauce
Book:Ramen and Gyoza
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“He detected a faint hint of tonkatsu in the broth, but the base was definitely chicken rather than pig bones. The broth wasn't quite transparent, but it was a great deal clearer than the turbid liquid that usually accompanied ramen these days. It seemed quite possible there was some kind of fish stock in there too. A garlicky, gingery aroma rose from the bowl. The noodles were the thin, straight type, and cooked slightly on the firm side. On top of them lay two slices of roast pork and another two of kamaboko fish cake. These were accompanied by bean sprouts, pickled bamboo shoots, and negi onion.”

SoupPorkToppingsSurf And TurfJapanese CuisineRamenFish Stocks
Book:The Restaurant of Lost Recipes
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“The broth... it's made with a mix of soy milk and charred miso. But how could you get a flavor this robust with just those?" "I mixed in grated ebi taro root. It's a strongly flavored tuber that mashes easily into a smooth, thick paste. Adding that to the broth gave it a creamy texture and a richer flavor." "Weird. All of a sudden I'm starting to feel warm." "That's the chili oil and grated raw garlic and ginger taking effect. The soy milk took the edge off of the spicy bite... so now it just gently warms the body without burning the tongue." "The rest of the ingredients are also a parade of detailed work. Thin slices of lotus root and burdock deep-fried to a crispy golden brown. Chunky strips of carrot and turnip grilled over an open flame until lightly charred and then seasoned with just a little rock salt to bring out their natural sweetness. Like a French buffet, each side ingredient is cooked in exactly the best way to bring out its full flavor! But the keystone to it all... ... is the TEMPEH!" TEMPEH Originating in Indonesia, tempeh is made of soybeans fermented into a cake form. Soybeans are lightly cooked and then wrapped in either banana or hibiscus leaves. When stored, the naturally occurring bacteria in the leaves causes the soybeans to ferment into tempeh. Traditional food with a history over four hundred years long, tempeh is well-known and often used in Indonesian cuisine. "Mm! Wow! It's really light, yet really filling too! Like fried rice." "It has a texture a lot like that of a burger patty, so vegetarians and people on macrobiotic diets use it a lot as a meat substitute. I broiled these teriyaki style in a mix of soy sauce and sake.”

IngredientsSoupDietRamenJoichiro YukihiraMacrobioticsTempeh
Book:食戟のソーマ 6 [Shokugeki no Souma 6]
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“Red pepper is the theme, but there's no sign of it in the noodles or broth. Does that one little dollop of paste on the side really have the oomph to compensate for that?" "It's harissa, a seasoning blend said to have originated in Northern Africa. The ingredients generally include paprika, caraway seeds, lemon juice and garlic, among other things. But the biggest is a ton of peppers, which are mashed into a paste and blended with those other spices." Oh! That's the same thing Dad made when he visited the dorm. I think I remember him saying it came from somewhere in Africa. "The ramen's broth is based on Chicken Muamba, another African recipe, where chicken and nuts are stewed together with tomatoes and chilies. This broth forms a solid backbone for the entire dish. Its zesty flavor amplifies the super-spicy harissa to explosive proportions!" "That's gotta be sooo spicy! Whoa! Are you sure it's a good idea to dump that much of it in all at once?!" "Hoooo!Thanks to the mellow, full-bodied and ever-so-slight astringency of that mountain of peanuts he infused into the broth... ... adding the harissa just makes the spiciness and richness of the overall dish grow deeper and more complex with each drop! Extra-thick cuts of Char Siu Pork, rubbed with homemade peanut butter before simmering! And the slightly thicker-than-usual wavy noodles! They soak up the broth and envelop the ultra-spiciness of the harissa... all together, it's addicting! Its deliciousness so intense that my body cries out from its heat! African Ramen... how very intriguing! A dish that never before existed anywhere in the world, but he's brought it to vibrant life!”

PeppersAfricanPeanut ButterSpicySeasoningRamenCayenneChicken Broth
Book:食戟のソーマ 27 [Shokugeki no Souma 27]
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“You're going to make the broth for the ramen with katsuobushi?" "The chicken you used to make the broth for the ramen is a broiler, right? In that case, it's better to make it with katsuobushi." "But the ramen's going to end up smelling like fish." "Don't worry about it. I mince some garlic, chives, shiitake mushrooms, and onion... ... and fry them together with ground pork in sesame oil. Then I add some hatchō miso that's been mixed with sake... ... to make miso-flavored mince meat. I pour the katsuobushi dashi onto the noodles. I've given the dashi a light soy sauce flavor. Then I place the meat on top... ... and sprinkle a lot of chopped green onion on it... ... and you've got Oishinbo-style miso ramen!" "Wow! It really does go well with the katsuobushi! It doesn't smell fishy at all!" "The scents of the sesame oil, garlic and miso... ... complement the scent of the katsuobushi nicely! Ramen broth is usually made from chicken and pork bones. I never thought of using fish!”

IngredientsRamenJapanese CookingBonito
Book:Ramen and Gyoza
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“In summer, most ramen restaurants in Tokyo serve hiyashi chūka, a cold ramen noodle salad topped with strips of ham, cucumber, and omelet; a tart sesame- or soy-based sauce; and sometimes other vegetables, like a tomato wedge or sheets of wakame seaweed. The vegetables are arranged in piles of parallel shreds radiating from the center to the edge of the plate like bicycle spokes, and you toss everything together before eating. It's bracing, ice-cold, addictive- summer food from the days before air conditioning. In Oishinbo: Ramen and Gyōza, a young lifestyle reporter wants to write an article about hiyashi chūka. "I'm not interested in something like hiyashi chūka," says my alter ego Yamaoka. It's a fake Chinese dish made with cheap industrial ingredients, he explains. Later, however, Yamaoka relents. "Cold noodles, cold soup, and cold toppings," he muses. "The idea of trying to make a good dish out of them is a valid one." Good point, jerk. He mills organic wheat into flour and hires a Chinese chef to make the noodles. He buys a farmyard chicken from an old woman to make the stock and seasons it with the finest Japanese vinegar, soy sauce, and sake. Yamaoka's mean old dad Kaibara Yūzan inevitably gets involved and makes an even better hiyashi chūka by substituting the finest Chinese vinegar, soy sauce, and rice wine. When I first read this, I enjoyed trying to follow the heated argument over this dish I'd never even heard of. Yamaoka and Kaibara are in total agreement that hiyashi chūka needs to be made with quality ingredients, but they disagree about what kind of dish it is: Chinese, Japanese, or somewhere in between? Unlike American food, Japanese cuisine has boundary issues.”

ColdSaladRamenHiyashi Chūka
Book:Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo
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“In Tokyo, ramen is a playground for the culinary imagination. As long as the dish contains thin wheat noodles, it's ramen. In fact, there's a literal ramen playground called Tokyo Ramen Street in the basement of Tokyo Station, with eight top-rated ramen shops sharing one corridor. We stopped by one evening after a day of riding around on the Shinkansen. After drooling over the photos at establishments such as Junk Garage, which serves oily, brothless noodles hidden under a towering slag heap of toppings, we settled on Ramen Honda based on its short line and the fact that its ramen seemed to be topped with a massive pile of scallions. However, anything in Tokyo that appears to be topped with scallions is actually topped with something much better. You'll meet this delectable dopplegänger soon, and in mass quantities. The Internet is littered with dozens if not hundreds of exclamation point-bedecked ramen blogs (Rameniac, GO RAMEN!, Ramen Adventures, Ramenate!) in English, Japanese, and probably Serbian, Hindi, and Xhosa. In Tokyo, you'll find hot and cold ramen; Thai green curry ramen; diet ramen and ramen with pork broth so thick you could sculpt with it; Italian-inspired tomato ramen; and Hokkaido-style miso ramen. You'll find ramen chains and fiercely individual holes-in-the-wall. Right now, somewhere in the world, someone is having a meet-cute with her first bowl of ramen. As she fills up on pork and noodles and seaweed and bamboo shoots, she thinks, we were meant to be together, and she is embarrassed at her atavistic reaction to a simple bowl of soup.”

TokyoRamen
Book:Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo
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“Now, back to Sapporo-ya. The place is deep enough below street level that the windows let in no natural light; harsh fluorescent lamps made everyone look ill. The walls are greenish-yellow. If you are directing a modern adaptation of The Divine Comedy, shoot the purgatory scenes here. The waitress set down my hiyashi chūka goma dare (sesame sauce). It was in every way the opposite of its surroundings: colorful, artfully presented, sweated over. The tangle of yellow noodles was served in a shallow blue-and-white bowl and topped with daikon, pickled ginger, roast pork, bamboo shoots, tomato, shredded nori, cucumber, bean sprouts, half a hard-boiled egg, and Japanese mustard. It was almost too pretty to ruin by tossing it together with chopsticks.”

ColdSaladRamenHiyashi ChūkaSapporo Ya
Book:Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo
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“The hot case at a kombini features tonkatsu, fried chicken, menchikatsu (a breaded hamburger patty), Chinese pork buns, potato croquettes, and seafood items such as breaded squid legs or oysters. In a bit of international solidarity, you'll see corn dogs, often labeled "Amerikandoggu." One day for lunch I stopped at 7-Eleven and brought home a pouch of "Gold Label" beef curry, steamed rice, inarizushi (sushi rice in a pouch of sweetened fried tofu), cold noodle salad, and a banana. Putting together lunch for the whole family from an American 7-Eleven would be as appetizing as scavenging among seaside medical waste, but this fun to shop for and fun to eat. Instant ramen is as popular in Japan as it is in college dorms worldwide, and while the selection of flavors is wider than at an American grocery, it serves a predictable ecological niche as the food of last resort for those with no money or no time. (Frozen ramen, on the other hand, can be very good; if you have access to a Japanese supermarket, look for Myojo Chukazanmai brand.) That's how I saw it, at least, until stumbling on the ramen topping section in the 7-Eleven refrigerator case, where you can buy shrink-wrapped packets of popular fresh ramen toppings such as braised pork belly and fermented bamboo shoots. With a quick stop at a convenience store, you can turn instant ramen into a serious meal. The pork belly is rolled and tied, braised, chilled, and then sliced into thick circular slices like Italian pancetta. This is one of the best things you can do with pork, and I don't say that lightly.”

RamenConvenience FoodsKombini
Book:Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo
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“The scent of the steaming broth was exquisite. The bowl teemed with thick, fresh noodles, tender meat, a soft-boiled egg and green onion garnishes floating at the top. We sat down and clinked Coke bottles. "Kanpai," said Uncle Masa. "What's that mean?" "Cheers." I took my first spoonfuls. Cheers was right. "OH MY GOD!" I exclaimed. Uncle Masa misinterpreted my outburst. "Too spicy for you?" "Hardly! I can't believe how flavorful the broth is. And these noodles are so fresh. I've never had noodles so good.”

RamenCheers
Book:My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life
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“Following the crowds came the blog entries. My early favorite read: “I thought for sure the soup would have a ketchup flavor to it, so I was surprised and thrilled to eat such an authentic, delicious bowl of ramen. Sorry, Ivan, for thinking such negative things about you.” Every news article, blog post, TV interview, and conversation focused on the gaijin angle. Every positive review started, “I expected Ivan Ramen to be terrible, but …” The online forums were alive with conspiracy theories. Some people said I was a front for a large Korean corporation; others claimed that I was just a front for a Japanese chef; my favorite one speculated that I was really Japanese and was just pretending to be a foreigner.”

HumorRamenForeigners In Japan
Book:Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession, and Recipes from Tokyo's Most Unlikely Noodle Joint
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“I'll say about Fueled By Ramen is, I don't know what anyone else's experience has been, but we signed to them as Fun. We already had a fanbase, we already had music out there so when they signed us they were signing our vision. I always think it's so weird when people think that Fueled By Raman are trying to change us or mould us into something else, as we weren't a bunch of kids playing in a garage who joined a label and then collectively worked on a vision, like, they signed us with the intention of letting us be Fun.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsTryingHas BeensKidsFunVisionIntentionBunchLabelsGarageSigningMouldTrying To ChangeKids PlayingRamen
Author:Jack Antonoff
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“A lot of people in this country are obese because of a form of malnutrition. One thing I'd like to do is to help people understand the correlation between a steady diet of empty calories - though you may not experience hunger pangs, you can't really function well if all you're eating are things like ramen noodles, or chips, cookies, and sodas, things that are quite typically inexpensive and affordable because of the way we subsidize the ingredients that go into them.”

PeopleIfsWayWellsMayCountryHelpingFormOne ThingEatingEmptyFunctionHungerDietsIngredientsSteadyChipsCookiesAffordableCaloriesCorrelationSodaMalnutritionObeseInexpensiveNoodlesRamen
Author:Lori Silverbush
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