Nick has been living in Japan now for five years full time and he feels that he has gotten to be a pretty good judge of ramen. We visited a ramen place near his house that he believes is one of the best ramen places around. I blogged about ramen during our first visit to Japan -here. It's one of my favorite foods in Japan. But there are so many kinds of ramen. It did not originate in Japan but in China. How it arrived in Japan is sort of a mystery but somehow between the 17th and 20th centuries, it ended up in Japan. In 1910, a restaurant opened in Tokyo called Rai-Rai Ken by a customs agent who'd worked in Yokohama's Chinatown. He served what was then known as "shina soba": shina for China, soba for the noddle dish that was already well established in Japanese cuisine. It caught on with the blue-collar workers because it was cheap and filling. Today, eighty percent of ramen shops are small businesses with ramen chefs who are proud of their creations. Nick said that at his neighborhood ramen place, the guy has been making ramen his whole life. We had some "fast food" ramen at a local amusement park that we went to a couple days earlier but Nick said it was more like Chinese ramen.
Bruce and I thought it was pretty good for "fast food". It was even served in nice ceramic bowls that you returned to the counter when you were done. Nick ordered a "milk" ramen at this same place. It was like a cream of corn soup with a hot dog in it. Well... O.K.
This is still better than most fast food in our country. You hardly get any meal in Japan without vegetables. They eat so many vegetables (along with their fish.) They even serve cucumber on a stick at baseball games.
I actually loved their cucumbers. They were like Persian cucumbers, real small but full of flavor. The one at the baseball game was sort of pickled. Nick knew I liked the cucumbers we'd been eating at his house so he bought me this one at the game. The food in Japan is just constantly amazing. I actually had this for my main baseball game food-a bento box full of rice, seaweed and fish. You can see that they do have hot dogs. Bruce bought a hot dog to keep with tradition.
It's probably no surprise that Bruce and I both lost weight on this trip, as we did the first trip. Small portions, eating vegetables, fish and rice and walking at least 5 miles per day will do it. And you never feel full when you eat in Japan. You just eat until you're satisfied and everything is small portions or bitesize. If I could only keep it up when I'm home...anyway, back to the ramen.
The main differences in ramen is the broth and the noddles. At this place, the noodles were homemade and it was fun to watch them strain out the noodles when making each bowl of ramen.
Typically, ramen shops are small and you eat at the bar.
I like places where you eat at the bar because it's fun to watch all the cooks prepare the food.
We had to wait until some seats opened up but that's what everyone does. When you walk into a ramen shop, you buy a ticket in a vending machine with the kind of ramen you want.
Then you give your ticket to the host while you're waiting and they take it back to the chef. We saw these vending machine menus at other places, too, like bakeries. You order what you want and pay the machine, then give your ticket to the merchant. That way, the merchant does not have to handle any money. Once you sit down, there are containers of condiments you can put into your ramen if you want to compliment the flavors such as garlic, pickled ginger, etc.
I ordered the signature ramen that had a slice of pork, spinach and quail egg; Nick and Bruce ordered one of the larger ramen dish that had more pork, hard boiled egg, spinach and other vegetables. This was a Yokohama style ramen called le-kei. It consists of thick, straight-ish noodles served in a soy flavored pork broth similar to tonkotsu (pork bone broth.) The standard toppings are roasted pork (chashu), boiled spinach, sheets of nori which both of ours had, soft or hard boiled eggs and often shredded Welsh onion (negi) which we also had.
Nick said that Sachiyo thinks this type of ramen is too heavy and she likes the ramen better from her home town of Wakayama or Wakayama ramen which also uses a pork and soy broth but lighter amounts. There are four other regional ramens in Japan known for their different broths and noodles: Sapporo miso ramen is typically topped with sweet corn, butter, bean sprouts, finely chopped pork and garlic and sometimes seafood; Kitakata in northern Honshu is known for its rather thick, curly noodles served in a pork and niboshi (anchovy) broth; Tokyo style ramen consist of slightly thin, curly noodles served in a soy-flavored chicken broth; and Hakata ramen from Hakata district of Fukuoka city in Kyushu. It has a rich, milky, pork-bone tonkotsu broth and rather thin, non-curly and resilient noodles. When you eat ramen, you do not eat the broth but leave it in the bowl. It is only there to flavor the noodles and other items in the ramen. Nick showed us how to twirl the noodles into the spoon provided to eat them. But otherwise, it's O.K to just slurp it all up with chopsticks without the spoon.
You're suppose to slurp up your ramen rather quickly while it's in it's prime so that's why you really don't have to wait very long for a seat to open up. I guess you could say this is Japanese fast food like we had the amusement park - only this was high quality.
Ramen is one of my favorite Japanese foods but there are so many different variations depending what part of Japan you are in. I really like the Yokohama ramen but I bet I'd like all the others, as well. In my opinion, all Japanese ramen is ramen, the right way.
Bruce and I thought it was pretty good for "fast food". It was even served in nice ceramic bowls that you returned to the counter when you were done. Nick ordered a "milk" ramen at this same place. It was like a cream of corn soup with a hot dog in it. Well... O.K.
This is still better than most fast food in our country. You hardly get any meal in Japan without vegetables. They eat so many vegetables (along with their fish.) They even serve cucumber on a stick at baseball games.
I actually loved their cucumbers. They were like Persian cucumbers, real small but full of flavor. The one at the baseball game was sort of pickled. Nick knew I liked the cucumbers we'd been eating at his house so he bought me this one at the game. The food in Japan is just constantly amazing. I actually had this for my main baseball game food-a bento box full of rice, seaweed and fish. You can see that they do have hot dogs. Bruce bought a hot dog to keep with tradition.
It's probably no surprise that Bruce and I both lost weight on this trip, as we did the first trip. Small portions, eating vegetables, fish and rice and walking at least 5 miles per day will do it. And you never feel full when you eat in Japan. You just eat until you're satisfied and everything is small portions or bitesize. If I could only keep it up when I'm home...anyway, back to the ramen.
The main differences in ramen is the broth and the noddles. At this place, the noodles were homemade and it was fun to watch them strain out the noodles when making each bowl of ramen.
Typically, ramen shops are small and you eat at the bar.
I like places where you eat at the bar because it's fun to watch all the cooks prepare the food.
Then you give your ticket to the host while you're waiting and they take it back to the chef. We saw these vending machine menus at other places, too, like bakeries. You order what you want and pay the machine, then give your ticket to the merchant. That way, the merchant does not have to handle any money. Once you sit down, there are containers of condiments you can put into your ramen if you want to compliment the flavors such as garlic, pickled ginger, etc.
I ordered the signature ramen that had a slice of pork, spinach and quail egg; Nick and Bruce ordered one of the larger ramen dish that had more pork, hard boiled egg, spinach and other vegetables. This was a Yokohama style ramen called le-kei. It consists of thick, straight-ish noodles served in a soy flavored pork broth similar to tonkotsu (pork bone broth.) The standard toppings are roasted pork (chashu), boiled spinach, sheets of nori which both of ours had, soft or hard boiled eggs and often shredded Welsh onion (negi) which we also had.
Nick said that Sachiyo thinks this type of ramen is too heavy and she likes the ramen better from her home town of Wakayama or Wakayama ramen which also uses a pork and soy broth but lighter amounts. There are four other regional ramens in Japan known for their different broths and noodles: Sapporo miso ramen is typically topped with sweet corn, butter, bean sprouts, finely chopped pork and garlic and sometimes seafood; Kitakata in northern Honshu is known for its rather thick, curly noodles served in a pork and niboshi (anchovy) broth; Tokyo style ramen consist of slightly thin, curly noodles served in a soy-flavored chicken broth; and Hakata ramen from Hakata district of Fukuoka city in Kyushu. It has a rich, milky, pork-bone tonkotsu broth and rather thin, non-curly and resilient noodles. When you eat ramen, you do not eat the broth but leave it in the bowl. It is only there to flavor the noodles and other items in the ramen. Nick showed us how to twirl the noodles into the spoon provided to eat them. But otherwise, it's O.K to just slurp it all up with chopsticks without the spoon.
You're suppose to slurp up your ramen rather quickly while it's in it's prime so that's why you really don't have to wait very long for a seat to open up. I guess you could say this is Japanese fast food like we had the amusement park - only this was high quality.
Ramen is one of my favorite Japanese foods but there are so many different variations depending what part of Japan you are in. I really like the Yokohama ramen but I bet I'd like all the others, as well. In my opinion, all Japanese ramen is ramen, the right way.
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