A Guide to the Regional Ramen of Japan

Missing my favorite! "Tori pai tan" from Kagari in Tokyo. Literally "white chicken soup." http://i.imgur.com/e4vS59N.jpg

There used to be a chain in LA called "Chin-ma-ya" that served a variety called "tantanmen" that I haven't found elsewhere. Both the torrance and little tokyo location closed and now I only have vague memories of their terrible looping music to satiate me. You can get tankotsu anywhere but only they had the delicious tantanmen with the golden fried shrimp and the curry-side-dish-thingy. I barely appreciated them when they were here and now I crave what I cannot have.

Historical and geographical context of Japanese ramen from a Chinese cultural perspective: ra part is derived from 拉 (Mandarin la) which means pulled and refers to the process of making the noodles, the men part is derived from 麺 (Mandarin mian) which is the traditional Chinese character for noodles (面 is the simplified form). In modern China, this 麺/面 normally describes long-form wheat noodles however other types of wheat noodles (such as knife-cut noodles), egg noodles, various bean noodles and rice noodles are also popular and some of them are described with the same character. However, many are produced using alternate methods such as squashing through a press or manually slicing a large, pancake-like, thin, often doubled-over piece of noodle material in to noodle-like strands, or by cutting chunks off a block of dough. China has a lot of noodle traditions, probably (logically for its size and population) far more than Japan. Personally I'm a fan of 米干 or mi gan which is a Tai-style broad flat fresh rice noodle normally prepared in the southwest and 刀削面 (dao xue mian) or knife-cut noodles which hail from north-western China. Modern mainland China's instant noodle tradition, probably partly re-inspired by Japan's (possibly via Hong Kong) is known as 方便面 (fangbian mian) or 'convenience noodles'. A Taiwanese academic take on this whole thing would be interesting.

Note that the Wikipedia page for Ramen[1] is laughable in claiming the origin of ramen is unclear. It's clearly Chinese. Interestingly however, it claims the Japanese only began to use the term ramen after the 1950s, ie. after they invaded China, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam (all but Korea being huge noodle consumers). Previously the Japanese used other terms which directly attributed the tradition to China. While there is apparently no clear evidence, one could reliably assume that Buddhist monks and other travelers around the Nara period[2] would have brought knowledge of Chinese and Central Asian foodstuffs back to Japan from post Silk Road China.

As a postscript to be fair (borrowing happens in many directions!), so-called Chinese baozi (包子) or steamed buns are actually Turkic in origin, as attributed by surviving Yuan Dynasty cookbooks (see also Jewish, Polish, Russian, Tibetan traditions). The same sources include an early recipe for baklavah which has since died out in China... probably in the anti-foreign repression following the Mongol Yuan Dynasty at the dawn of the Ming, which incidentally was when Zhenghe sailed his great Chinese fleet to Southeast Asia and Africa. Also, some people claim Italy's noodle tradition is a post-Marco Polo thing (who, some credible evidence attests, was actually from the now Croatian island of Dubrovnik, under the sway of the piratical Venetian empire but not 'Italian' per-se).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramen#History

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanto_Rikush%C5%AB

I can't tell from the picture on my phone -- is that a clear chicken soup or a fatty chicken soup?

Daikichi in Yushima, Tokyo also has a very good (clear) chicken soup -- it's not uncommon to see people lining up before it even opens.

I love Ippudo's spiciest on the menu, here in Tokyo. Supposed to be Hakata-style. Like to top it with gyoza.