Curious why ramen is so rare and yet sushi joints are on every corner?

Question

With all the fervor for the new YumeWoKatare, I wonder why really good authentic ramen is not something more chefs are keen to make here in Boston? I've been to Ippudo and Totto in NYC and on every night of the week the lines start forming 1/2 hour before they open for dinner and don't let up all night. 

Just curious whether anyone has any theories/thoughts. And quite frankly, I just like to talk about ramen! Ha. (Anyone here had ramen in Japan? My favorite place was chain called Kamakura.)

Answer

Pure speculation on my part. Perhaps its due to the profit margin? It seems easier to charge a lot of money for sushi and sake rather than a bowl of noodles. Along those lines, I long for the specialist beef noodle shops of Taiwan but I doubt that will ever make it here...

Answer

I'm more bummed by the extremely limited menus in Japanese food. I see basics repeated from place to place. And most of them seem executed as an afterthought because they expect to sell mostly sushi and sashimi. 

Here's a contrast. Over 30 years, I used to eat at a Japanese restaurant in an industrial suburb of Detroit. The restaurant was set up for the Japanese auto executives visiting and working in the area. I've never seen food like this in Boston. Yes, a few places do creative Japanese food or Japanese-inspired food but this was 30 years ago and the food was traditional. I would order whatever the specials were. I still remember one bento as a top 5 lunch ever: a lightly fried - really lightly fried - oblong of fishy paste that was like a fish jelly in a crust; a piece of fish with bones sticking out like sculpture, charred on one side and raw on the other and so on. It cost under $10. I'm not complaining about Boston. It seems that all over this country, with only a few exceptions, sushi and sashimi have overwhelmed the very deep reality of Japanese cuisine.

Answer

Im sure they will begin to pop up very soon. IMHO Ramen shops are going to be the new "thing" all over the US in the next few years. The ones in NYC are always crazy busy, as are the ones Ive seen in california. A ramen shop just opened here in austin and people are lining up over an hour before the place opens!

Answer

Over the past 20-30 years or so, sushi has become the iconic Japanese food in America, and still has an air of sophistication and culture to it, even when it's easily found at Trader Joe's or Shaws.... whereas 'ramen' still reminds everyone of the .25-cent noodles they ate in college. Some folks might still balk at raw fish, but a lot more tend to roll their eyes at paying $10 for ramen before they've had the real stuff.

Answer

There was a ramen chain with a few locations here in Boston/Cambridge back in the 80's. Anyone remember the name? Or why they didn't make it?
Pho certainly has a following.

Answer

Because ramen is everyday food in Japan, while sushi is special. Don't get me wrong, you can get sushi in any Japanese supermarket these days but it wasn't always that way. Just look at how many of the top restaurants and top chefs in Japan are sushi-related. So once eating raw fish was seen as acceptable here, it makes sense that Japanese restaurants would try to serve it. Add in the profit margin and the other Asians cashing in on sushi's popularity (most sushi in this country is made by non-Japanese) and you have a sushi boom. One more point is that technically, ramen isn't Japanese food.

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at a certain age and weight, everyone wonders how many carbos they should be taking in. I never have a problem thinking that i should be eating less sashimi.

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When I was standing in line on the sidewalk the other night, some guy walked by, saw the number of Japanese and Japanese-Americans in the line (90%, I'd guess), and asked, "Can the sushi be that good?" 

I was tempted to correct him, but i suspected he was asking rhetorically, just being a mocking d-bag. I imagine he's like a lot of Americans: sushi is the only Japanese cuisine he knows, and he probably doesn't care for it, maybe hasn't even tried it.

http://mcslimjb.blogspot.com/

Answer

After eating fresh-made soba noodles at Ippaku in Berkeley a couple months ago, I'm longing for a soba noodle place. At least we have a couple of Ramen options in Boston (Pikachu @ Super 88, Sapporo at Porter, and now YumeWoKarate.) I can relate to your disappointment of the overall pigeon-holing of Japanese cuisine to sushi, but it's simply what happens to ethnic foods. Look at Italian-American (Red sauce, chicken parm), American-Chinese food, Indian (Tikka Masala), Thai (Pad Thai). People's tastes tend to graviate towards foods that appeal to their palate while seeming exotic or different. I think for many people, the saltyness, fatty pork, and even ignorance toward ramen being something other than "cup-o-ramen" is what prohibits it from being more popular. 

The one cuisine that I'm really surprised hasn't exploded in America is Korean food. While a lot of it can be challenging for the American palate, sweet barbarqued meats should fit right in in America.

Answer

Profit margins.

and FYI, most "Sushi" places in the Boston area are owned by Chinese, and are staffed by Chinese (Mandarin speaking) sushi chefs. They figured out that it's just more profitable than trying to open up yet another "cheap chinese food" restaurant...

Oiishi and Oga and that little place in the basement in Coolidge Corner are notable exceptions.

Answer

slurping isn't date-friendly for many people. Chowhounds and ramen enthusiasts excluded, natch.

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Resurrecting this thread to say: I've enjoyed the kakuni ramen at Osushi in Harvard before, but I had it yesterday and it had gone downhill. Soup was milder and the 3 pieces of kakuni had noticeably shrunk in size. There's been a change of chef and other staff in July which might have something to do with it.

Answer

Just asked a local sushi chef this very question. His answer: turning out great ramen is both difficult and boring.

Answer

Ate my way through Inaka's menu for my Improper review (in the new issue). Quite like it. 

http://mcslimjb.blogspot.com/

Answer

When I was in Japan three years ago, my husband and I were wandering around Kyoto with our tour guide, on our own, to go to a Japanese craft museum we wanted to see.

Afterwards, the guide asked if we wanted to stop for some lunch and asked what we were in the mood for. I immediately said "ramen", because we hadn't really had any so far on the trip. His eyes lit up and he took us around the corner and down a side street to a tiny ramen bar without even a sign outside. I think it had 6 seats at a bar facing the kitchen.

He ordered for us, and they placed two bowls of the most delicious soup I've ever had in my life in front of us. Big steaming bowls with this rich, amazing pork broth, big pieces of tender pork, some tendon, scallions, and a huge mass of tender ramen noodles. It was just amazing food. The even more amazing part was that it was the cheapest meal we had had in Japan. I think it came to $6.00 per bowl.

I don't know if it was part of a chain or not, but it really opened my eyes and changed my opinion of ramen soup forever.

Answer

I once asked Junji-san at Sushi Island (before it closed) why he wouldn't consider adding Ramen to his menu. He told me that it was too difficult to do well. He said there are a lot of places serving mediocre Ramen but almost none doing it like you would have in Japan. Having lived in Japan for many years I have to agree. If you want to get an understanding of why Ramen in Japan is almost a religion check out a movie called Ramen Girl. It's a cute sort of romantic comedy of an American girl who ends up working for a tyrannical ramen shop owner. It's hilarious at times but it really gives you a feel for Japan's ramen culture

Answer

Had a very nice ramen from the Fugu truck today - light pork broth, ground pork, corn, scallions, pickled bamboo shoots, and a perfectly cooked soft poached egg and noodles - 8 bucks - I have had their bibimbap a few times and it was ok for downtown lunch, but this ramen was a triumph.

Answer

This has become an excellent discussion of ramen but the original question keeps haunting me. Why is sushi become part of our popular culture while ramen has not? Especially in Boston winters.

Is it possible that soup is not a cool thing to order or eat in our culture? How often do you order any soup in a restaurant? Pho, chowder, french onion, lobster bisque, and gazpacho are the cool soups so they make it onto menus but it is not food category that is given a lot of respect. 

Even one of the best soup makers around, New England Soup Factory, was not able to sustain a customer base across the street from the Prudential Center on Boylston when they tried a few years ago.

Understand, this comes from a soup lover. But, I also know that soup is a meal with a heritage of poverty not plenty. It took a long time before I could convince my husband that soup was not just for when you were sick and that serving soup to guests was not a sign that we were poor or broke. 

It's an interesting question. Thanks to kdl for raising it. It will give me something to think about as I make pot after pot of soup in the cold months ahead. 

Penny
http://www.bostonzest.com/

Answer

Lots of great comments from lots of great Chowhounds, but I think this is really just about the Boston restaurant scene being small, slow moving and relatively risk averse. There is clearly demand for good ramen here. If YumeWoKatare (or any other good ramen place) opened up a place 4 times YWK's current size tomorrow in a good location, it would be crowded every day. I was in NY last week for 2 days and all the people that I was with from Boston in their suits just wanted ramen (Went both days, 1st to Momofuku and 2nd to Hide-Chan, talk about different styles of ramen!). It's only a matter of time that Ramen really hits Boston, I just wish it would come sooner.

Answer

I've been out of Boston in DC for several years, and regardless wouldn't feel comfortable giving an opinion about this particular food in this particular market.

But, I would like to say that y'all are silly. By that I mean all the talk of Japanese equivalents and pork and _____. Different country. Different market. Stop comparing. Even to NYC and LA. I've never been to Japan. But while I've traveled extensively in Eastern Europe, I don't hold restaurants in that part of the world as absolute comparisons to what I find here. Nor what my mother (born and raised in that part of the world) made as an absolute comparison. It informs...not distinguishes.

That said, there a number of good ramen joints in DC. By good, I mean I like them and they are reviewed well. I cannot compare them to anything in Japan or NYC or LA personally. However, they seem to be well regarded and despite the international population in this town, the "not up to Japanese or NYC standards" snobbishness doesn't seem to appear here.

But to the question of sushi vs. ramen: I don't know why one got accepted over the other originally, but sushi began invading the American conscious back at least in the 80's, if not 70's. That's a pretty big head start, which led to the proliferation of sushi over ramen in towns across this country.

Ramen is just breaking in over this last five or ten years, so regardless of other factors I wouldn't be surprised if it took at least another ten years before it became established across the US.

Answer

Both:

1) Exotic
2) Flavorful

Ramen:

1) Unhealthy
2) Inelegant
3) Synonymous with being poor and/or in college

Sushi:

1) Healthy
2) Elegant
3) Expensive/Associated with wealth

Answer

It's easy to eat sushi with chopsticks and even easier to eat sushi with your hands.

Eating soup with chopsticks is illogical and messy.

It's very tough to get someone to try and eat ramen/pho/saimin who is worried about looking like a bumbling round eye.

Answer

Because to Americans, ramen is fat-laden instant junk food for students and poor people. Anyone who's eaten real (i.e., fresh) ramen in a good ramen joint knows better, but generally that's only Americans who have been to Asia or to the few American cities where ramen bars are relatively common. Even in those, most of the customers always seem to be people from Japan.

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