Ramen - Cascadian Abroad

A Ramen Story

December 17, 2015 by Robert Haddan

In the U.S., ramen is a staple among poor college kids. A buck will get you three or four meals worth of freeze-dried noodles and too-salty seasoning packets.

Ramen in Japan is a different story. You can still buy the instant stuff, but for roughly the same price, you can head to one of a jillion ramen shops for the real thing. Here, ramen is an artform. It’s full of complex flavors created by labor-intensive processes.

The base is called dashi. It’s made by boiling aromatics like onions, garlic and ginger with konbu (dried seaweed) and katsuoboshi (dried, smoked fish shavings). Recipes are passed down through generations, refined over hundreds of years. In traditional-style restaurants, chefs are judged on the quality of their dashi. Dashi is subtle, but key to the essence of Japanese food as it serves as the basis for most Japanese recipes. It’s also part of the reason it’s difficult to be a non-fish-eating vegetarian in Japan.

The soup broth is typically made from pork. A thick white stock is made from simmering the bones, fat and meat for several hours. The broth is strained and added to the dashi, creating the core of the soup.

Ramen noodles are fresh, not freeze-dried. They’re made from kansui (an alkaline salt water) or eggs, giving them the durability to rest in a hot broth without disintegrating. They come in a variety of thicknesses, often depending on the region.

The toppings are what really differentiate ramen from region to region and chef to chef. A thin slice of pork is typically placed on top. Miso paste might be added, giving the broth a rich, saltier flavor. Korean chili paste can be added to create a spicy ramen. Ground pork might float in the bowl, adding another layer of flavor and texture. A salad with green onions and bean sprouts tossed in sesame oil is one of my favorite extras.

A soft-boiled egg is often included, although some shops just place a bowl of hard-boiled eggs on the counter. Soy sauce, raw garlic, chili oil and Japanese chili powder (shichimi) are common DIY additions provided by the shops.

Finding a good vegetarian ramen, even in Tokyo, is difficult. Strike good… just finding vegetarian ramen period is tough. The best is at T’s Tantan in Tokyo Station. Even non-vegetarians line up at all hours for their various vegan ramen options. The Ramen Museum in Yokohama also has a few tasty choices. But your corner ramen shop isn’t going to be much help. They take pride in their soup and aren’t really equipped to modify the broth for you.

Fortunately, making authentic-tasting vegetarian Japanese ramen at home is pretty easy. True to form, my recipe uses a homemade dashi and broth with storebought fresh ramen noodles. Outside of Japan, you should be able to find most ingredients at Trader Joe’s/Whole Foods-type stores or a local Asian market. It’s a great meal for these cold winter nights!

Spicy Miso Ramen (Vegetarian)

Dashi

6 cups water
1 tbsp no-chicken bouillon + 1 tsp no-beef bouillon
2 cloves garlic, crushed
14 grams peeled raw ginger, sliced (thumb-sized piece)
2-3 green onions
3″ x 1″ (8 x 3cm) dried kombu
1 tsp sesame oil

Soup Base

3-4 tbsp miso paste
1 tbsp + 1 tsp sake (mirin can be substituted)
2 tsp soy sauce (full-salt is best)
1/8 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp Korean chili bean paste (Tobanjan)

Seasoning

1 tbsp + 1 tsp sesame oil
1 clove garlic, grated

Noodles

Fresh ramen noodles

Toppings

Green onions, sliced for garnish
Soft-boiled or poached eggs — 1 per bowl
Fried tofu, sliced
1/4 cup small-crumble TVP with enough dashi to cover
1/2 cup corn kernels, pan-fried in butter and salt

Directions

Prepare the toppings before making the soup and noodles. Once the noodles are cooked, you will need to add the soup and toppings right away or the noodles will get soft.
Put dashi ingredients in a large pot and let boil for 15 minutes. Strain, then put the broth back in the pot.
Add soup base to the dashi and let it simmer at low heat. Push the miso paste through a wire mesh strainer with the boiling dashi to make sure you don’t have large lumps of salty miso paste in your soup.
In another pot, add ramen noodles to boiling water. Cook according to the package—about three minutes for fresh noodles.
While cooking noodles, add seasonings to the soup and stir.

Assembly

Put TVP into the bottom of each bowl.
Divide noodles into each bowl.
Add soup.
Top with tofu, eggs, corn and green onions.

Serve with a deep soup spoon and chopsticks.

If you try it, leave a note in the comments and let me know what you think!

Yokohama

October 5, 2024January 23, 2015 by Robert Haddan

Yokohama was high on my list of places I wanted to visit while in Japan. I really knew nothing about it and the desire was probably due to it being home to the Yokohama Baystars baseball team, Japan’s equivalent to the Chicago Cubs (think “lovable losers”).

Last weekend, we popped down to Yokohama for the day. Located a short train ride south of Tokyo, it’s actually the most populated municipality in Japan and second most populated city after Tokyo. Due to its development as a port town in the 1800s, Yokohama is a melting pot of Pacific cultures.

Our first stop was the Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum, billed as the world’s first food-themed amusement park. On the two lower levels, a 1950s-era Japanese street scene has been replicated in authentic detail with signage, music and a variety of ramen shops. A less-era-authentic magician performed tricks for the large crowd while blasting modern electronic music from his iPhone.

The wait times for each shop are on a chalkboard by the main stairs. We arrived around noon and already some of the shops had 30 minute waits. Waiting that long for ramen in Japan seems a little silly since there are literally 20,000 shops in Tokyo with no wait, but it’s a little like waiting in line at Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland. The wait is part of the experience.

We picked NARUMI-IPPUDO, a French bouillon/Japanese dashi hybrid for our first course. The mini-sized bowls with medium-sized noodles and light broth were the perfect appetizer. In response to the variety of tourists who come through the museum’s doors, most of the shops offer at least one vegetarian bowl and one halal option for the increasing number of Muslim visitors. Guilt-free ramen is the best ramen of all!

Spicy Miso Ramen — The delicious spicy miso ramen at Ryu Shanghai

Lunch #2 involved one of the aforementioned 30 minute waits. Ryu Shanghai offered a unique spicy ramen with thick noodles in a rich, flavorful soup. The added dollop of the spicy miso sauce on top was enough to open up the sinuses on a cold day.

Kamome Shokudo was one shop caught my attention in the brochure. The original shop washed away in the 2011 earthquake and tsumani that decimated northeastern Japan. The shop has been replicated in the museum, giving their Sendai-style ramen a second life.

Puroresu — A 1950s-era television broadcasts old puro resu (professional wrestling) matches

Era-correct props dotted the museum’s basement floors. A payphone booth was made even more authentic by the black electrical tape holding the cord to the handset. An old black and white television console showed 1950s professional wrestling matches (side note: the sport’s popularity in the 1950s used to draw large crowds to watch the matches on big screens in Tokyo). A stained vending machine rolled out small glass bottles of Coca Cola. Plenty to see while waiting in those long ramen lines.

Yokohama Bayfront — Yokohama Landmark Tower; Cosmo Clock 21 ferris wheel; Yokohama Bay Bridge.

Next, we headed south toward Tokyo Bay. Every once in awhile, we get those “doesn’t feel like Japan” moments. The area around Tokyo Bay certainly qualified as one of those times. The massive Landmark Tower, Japan’s second largest building, anchors the skyline and casts a large shadow over the Nippon Maru, a clipper-style boat-turned-museum that was used as a training vessel for the Japanese Merchant Marines from the 1930s to the 1980s.

Looking toward the bay, you can’t miss the Cosmo Clock 21, the centerpiece of the Minato Mirai 21 (MM21) shopping center. Built in 1989, it was the world’s tallest ferris wheel for nearly a decade and, thanks to the digital clock on its face, it still stands as the world’s largest timepiece.

Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse — The Red Brick Warehouse served as a customs building in the early 20th century, but now hosts shops, restaurants and cultural facilities

From MM21, we followed Kishamichi Promenade along the bayfront. It felt more like the Cairns Esplanade in Australia than anything we’ve seen in Japan. A running event was taking place on the day we visited, so we shuffled alongside those athletes braving the cold weather along the bayfront, ending up at the Red Brick Warehouse. The event overtook the grounds of the former customs warehouse, which was restored in the early 1990s and is now (of course) a retail center.

Yokohama Chinatown — The gates to Yokohama’s Chinatown district

From there, we ventured inland toward Yokohama’s thriving Chinatown district. Thousands of Chinese immigrants arrived at the port in the 1800s, bringing with them food (including ramen) and customs that still thrive in Japan today. More than 250 shops are fit into several city blocks, making it one of the world’s largest “Chinatown” districts.

Two ornate and impressive temples appear between the pork bun shops in Chinatown. Guan Di Miao was founded in the 1860s by immigrants as a central spiritual site as well as a tribute to Guan Gong, a well-respected general during the Han Dynasty in around 220 B.C.

The Mazu Miao temple is the newest temple in Chinatown

The second temple rivals all of the great structures we’ve seen in Japan, yet was built less than a decade ago, officially opening in March 2006. The city had planned on building a large apartment complex on the site, but the community was concerned about the impact such a building would have on the area. They negotiated with the developers and eventually purchased the land, building Mazu Miao in its place.

Less than two hours by train, Yokohama deserves another day trip in the near future. Would love to hear from anyone who’s visited about what we missed the first time around.

Cascadian Abroad :45—Yokohama

Sitting on the Sidelines

September 19, 2014 by Robert Haddan

Today I was out for a run in the middle of the day, one of the many perks of my current non-employed status. I ran past one of the nearby parks and saw some guys playing baseball. I decided to take a little break and sat down to watch them for awhile.

The “guys” were probably 65 years old on average. They were taking batting practice, rotating in and out like a well-oiled team. Long fly balls corralled with two hands. Line drives snagged with nifty backhand catches. Ground balls around the infield tossed with precision to first base. I didn’t see a single error.

I sat and watched with knowledge of the social role reversal taking place. Usually it’s the old guy reliving his youth from the sidelines, but not today. I wished I had a glove. I wished one of them would ask if I wanted to take a turn at the plate. But, I just watched for about 10 minutes before finishing up my run.

Getting in the game here can be hard. I’m still not super comfortable communicating and got out of practice a bit over the summer. But there are days where the spirit of taking advantage of the situation overcomes the hesitance.

I had a free day for lunch last week and decided to go out in the neighborhood. For some reason, the local ramen shop is intimidating. It’s just a hole in the wall with a counter and about a dozen seats.

I walked past the first time, but after a block I’d psyched myself up enough to go in. I sat down at the counter and asked if the miso ramen was vegetarian (it was-ish, but I’m pretty sure the broth had some pork fat in it…). The security guard on his lunch break sitting next to me gave me a hard-boiled egg from the bowl on the counter and told me it was abunai or dangerous. He motioned as if I should put it in my pocket and laughed hard.

Another man down the counter spoke a tiny bit of English and used it all. He overheard my order and asked “You are vegetarian?” Then, when I went to get water from the self-serve machine, he asked if I could read the sign (which, surprisingly, I could!). I read it in Japanese and he read it in English. As I was leaving, he patted me on the back and said “no problem,” which I’m pretty sure is the second phrase they teach in Japanese schools after “Hello.”

After a few minutes though, the novelty of the American wore off and we all ate our meals in peace.

It felt good to “get in the game” and be a part of the community.