Just the opening scene is must-know : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeVhZkbAc5k
:)
I am existentially opposed to, among a completely unreasonable large number of things, eating. I am often embarrassed to eat, and rarely fail to consider the final product and its porcelain fate. But Ramen justifies it all; making sense of.. and almost if not actually, dignifying the depraved and insatiable Cannibal Overlord we call our Universe.
One could even ask, if the whole mess was worth it. But to answer fairly, one must experience good Ramen.
Appreciated ;)
BTW, you can also replicate the form factor using western cooking ingredients/traditions and it still works pretty well.
Brazil has the largest ethnic Japanese population outside of Japan, with an estimated 2 million people of Japanese descent. Most of these individuals live in the state and city of São Paulo, which features the famous Japanese neighborhood of Liberdade [2][3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_community_of_Düsseldo...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberdade_%28district_of_São_P...
Like, it’s not just eating. It’s socializing as well. You use the restaurant as a place for conversation.
If the average American fast food place here is reflective of the average American restaurant experience, I think that’s a big difference. Even the most run down gyros or kebab place that also sells burgers and pizza will have tables outside on the street with ash trays and will sell you a cold drink. But even five guys, which is a lot more expensive than those places, has lighting that is more suitable for surgery than chatting.
If you go to places like France, people will get an espresso and a little thing of olives and just sit there smoking and people watching. Alone. That’s maybe a bit much for me but a 2 to 3 hour dinner with friends seems very normal for me.
Oh and now I have a kid so a lot of times the waiters will play with the kid or the environment is suitable for the kid to just play alone and then it’s a good opportunity to just have a cold drink or a coffee with the my wife in peace after a meal so even with only my family we’d do 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
And, like burgers you do have high end joints too.
Also, like burgers ramen isn’t considered “healthy” food. High sodium, high fat, and somewhat low in nutrients. It’s basically fast-food.
(†) For the curious, it was chāshū ramen.
Edit: To avoid confusion, I do not mean instant ramen, but a plastic bowl of chilled, pre-prepared take away ramen soup.
> chāshū ramen.
Chashu is just name for pork theh put in soup. Main charecterization is type of broth - tonkotsu is the hardest to pull off as it requires 8 hours of boiling bones (but I’ve seen ready made broth to buy so I suspect most shops use that). Miso one is pretty trivial to make at home. I guess not many know this but one type of tare (condiment you put in ramen) is literally charred garlic (30 minutes in oil or so, then blend it). Once you learn this you’ll always spot it (typically in tonkotsu).
As for western shops I agree they are mostly meh, some very much so. Even decent ones you are more of a buying Japanese ramen experience than the food itself lol (I succumb to it myself).
Another big problem with getting a "ramen" in a random western restaurant is noodles. If they don't make them themselves, the dry shelf stable stuff is just not good (at least what I can find in my EU country). As I was slowly upping my ramen game at home, the single biggest difference in quality was when I started making my own noodles.
I suppose if a shop markets itself as a ramen shop, you have a chance of getting a decent bowl. Most of the "asian" or even "japanese" restaurants in my city are places where they add cream to tonkotsu to make it white...
Ramen chains managed by Japanese people are decently good when I tried them in France (Ippudo for instance), it's not that far from what's served in Japan. It costs 1.5x to 2x more, and the default orders will be slightly adapted to the locals (harder noodles and lower grease by default) but that's par for the course.
> BTW, you can also replicate the form factor using western cooking ingredients/traditions and it still works pretty well.
The toughest part is the sheer amount of time to prepare the soup and dexterity to get good noodles. Spending 8h on the soup with all the ingredients, and repeat I don't know how many times to get to a decent balance is a dedication I don't think I'll ever have to be honest.
There doesn't really seem to be a "cheap local default" option like there would be in Japan, or Portugal. I guess McDonald's sort of fills that niche, but this neighbourhood doesn't have one. The two best "cheap" options near me are both Vietnamese.
One nice thing about this is that there's no penalty for experiencing a variety of food.
My wife, who I have been married to most of my long life, has never liked vegetables. I make Ramen and she eats her veggies as if they weren’t even in the Ramen. Just a little life hack I thought I would share, it might work with kids also.
https://salmonnoodlekyoto.com/
I got the "Salmon Dandan Noodles". Good lord that broth. No idea what was in there. It wasn't clear; rather slightly thick and creamy. And the salmon was so tender. I don't even like pork but I also ate that without thinking. Man I still miss that dish.
It's also kind of a wild take "I have nearly zero experience in <thing from other culture> and I don't understand why people from that culture enjoy it"
Re price and prep
First, it's quite difficult to make. Try it, lol.. but by your admission you haven't had anything decent.
Second - in Japan, Ramen is mostly pretty cheap, a lot of places have a vending machine where you pay for a bowl and get a ticket with an order number. It's really not a fancy or pricey experience unless you're somewhere upmarket.
I went on holiday to Spain and found they have a lot of pretty decent Japanese restaurants for some reason.
What are those prices specifically? In Barcelona (one of those western cities, imo) at a good ramen place, you get Gyozas for ~5 EUR, and a nice ramen for ~12-14 EUR, add a drink and you end up with ~20 EUR per person, which strikes me as relatively affordable for eating out, but maybe the metropolitan prices have biased me over time. Is this expensive/cheap compared to the other cities you've tried ramen in?
> BTW, you can also replicate the form factor using western cooking ingredients/traditions and it still works pretty well.
Isn't that just a stew at that point? How is it still ramen if you switch out all the ingredients and the broth that makes ramen ramen?
In Barcelona (one of those western cities, imo) at a good ramen place, you get Gyozas for ~5 EUR, and a nice ramen for ~12-14 EUR, add a drink and you end up with ~20 EUR per person, which strikes me as relatively affordable for eating out, but maybe the metropolitan prices have biased me over time. Is this expensive/cheap compared to the other cities you've tried ramen in?
About $20 for a medium bowl in my not very fancy area of Miami.
A large delicious Tonkutsu in North Hollywood pre-covid was $15.
The online restaurant listings, at least in the States, have been usurped by arbitragers. Expect a 30% or higher surcharge for online orders, if you yourself pick up.
But I think the point is that paying 7€ makes it a pretty good deal, at 14€ for "a bowl of soup" it becomes a meh experience.
Similarly, as an Italian abroad, I can get a decent pizza margherita in Budapest, but it costs 12 euros and I get upset every time, you shouldn't spend that much for a bit of dough and mozzarella :)
As a ramen lover, I try to take advantage of value oriented cheaper pricing when it's available.
As a relatively tall active man, I need to pregame restaurants with something more cost effective, and even still need to order 1.5 to 2x what everyone else does in order to feel satiated. (~82kg, 192cm)
At least ramen takes some time to eat. When I go into a standard burger place nowadays, it takes me literally 20 seconds sometimes to finish a $20+ burger, and then I'm just sitting there waiting for people to delicately nibble their way through what is a deeply overrated culinary experience, in many cases. Like c'mon, give me some damn food, I'll go get it myself.
Honestly, that sounds like a you problem. Maybe try eating instead of guzzling. You may even find time to enjoy the food.
It is a me problem, in the sense that I have eyes and tastebuds; the Emperor has no clothes and tastes no better than many other people.
The food is mid and costs double what it should. I usually find that Ramen is not mid but does cost twice as much as it should.
Japan, on the other hand, is heaven for those with US dollars. A bowl of ramen is around ¥1,100 here (I’m here on a research visit), and they generally taste amazing! Even a Big Mac meal from McDonald’s is far cheaper than in the Bay Area.
Right around When "smash" patties started becoming the next millenial fad is when I first started seeing absurd prices like that. Sides stopped being included, and I ordered a double patty at a local place, paid $16 for just the damn burger, felt insulated, and then just left. I continue trying to keep an open mind, but I tend to be skeptical that I'll get anything worthwhile for my money. If only I'd had a huge amount invested in stocks when the value of money halved.
> What to Submit - On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
> No cookies. No tips. No JavaScript. Just ramen.
I cannot help but wonder if Claude wrote this copy. Not that there would be anything wrong with that, I am just curious.
For years I have taken pictures of bathroom sinks. My main curiosity with them is the crazy variance of proportions and layout of the bowl and the faucet(s). It all started because there are so many sinks where you basically have to touch the sink bowl just to wash your hands because of the faucet choice. So I want to make a similar website which shows the bathroom sinks of the world!
edit: it looks like my firefox linux have a "prefers-reduced-motion: reduce" set...
So I discovered that setting animation to instant on kde, tell the browser to reduce motions...
Something that has seriously increased my trust in Yelp:
There's this one restaurant that has always been my favorite within 100s of miles and recently I noticed they had a top 100 in the USA poster for their cuisine on the outside from Yelp. It doesn't mention what rank specifically, just top 100. I look it up and they are in the top 10.
So I really have no idea how Yelp was able to figure out that this restaurant is so good and to rank it in a way I agree with. It could be just based on reviews because it does have close to 5 stars but regardless it's impressive.
Agree that NYC has great ramen. One of my favorites (in LES) was in fact in TFA.
https://www.pechakucha.com/presentations/the-savory-month-of...
Tabutchan in Osaka was the confirmation that it is the most delightful form of food invented by mankind.
https://ramen.haus/united-kingdom/london/cha-mori-ramen-kana...
Pre-Covid, this restaurant would regularly have queues down the street to get in. But it’s a small place. Basically the size of someone’s front room. Definitely worth a visit.
It remains quite different from a genuine ramen shop in Japan.
I think the problem is, with that kind of lighting, you'd subconsciously expect a lot of movement. ( like in this animation: https://kotaku.com/unity-3d-ramen-noodles-art-artist-tech-vf... )
Obviously, there can't be any movement, because it's just a single photograph - and if that were all, then perception would adjust accordingly.
But because of the rotation, suddenly movement is added back - only, the contents of the photo don't follow it, so the whole thing now looks like a plastic replica of a ramen dish instead of the real thing.