How Ramen Changed in America

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(soft music)

[Julia] Ramen is one of those things

that elicits that kind of nostalgia and longing

that people want.

[Kenshiro] The balance of that noodles

and soup magic together.

[Julia] It's something that people crave.

[Shigetoshi] It's like a drug.

(slurping)

(beeping)

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Ramen definitely arrived in the states first

as a convenience food, a snack food, a cheap food.

It's sort of unfortunate because I think people

had a real idea that it was something

that you eat when you can't afford to eat anything else.

I've had a lot of instant ramen.

That was the easiest meal to make around the house.

The go-to food where you don't have many other things.

[Julia] I would say ramen really hit the mainstream

when a chef, then a young chef, called David Chang,

decided to open a noodle shop and he was Korean American,

he had lived in Japan for a long time.

He said that he had to start making ramen

because he could not get good ramen in New York.

It's a food group of it's own.

And they literally cook the shit out of it.

He knew from having lived in Japan

that ramen was just a common food,

it wasn't something that people thought about that much,

they took it for granted.

And so he had this idea that has become very prevalent

in American food at least,

what you would call hipster cuisine.

which is to take something that's considered kind of a low

and bring it up high.

So when you talk about elevating a food,

things get very complicated.

We don't want to seem like we're being snobbish

about things like cheeseburgers or ramen.

A way that you don't want to elevate food

is just by putting some foie gras on top of it

or sprinkling some gold leaf on top.

When a food is about to be elevated,

usually the first thing is all about authenticity.

(speaking foreign language)

It's gonna be just like in Tokyo.

(speaking foreign language)

I think the introduction to the concept of artisanal ramen

was in a film called Tampopo

that was very popular at film festivals.

That chef in that ramen-ya was obsessed

with perfecting every part of ramen.

In the film probably was the first time

I had ever heard anyone slurping that way

and that loudly in a proper setting.

That's the kind of thing you are told never to do.

I learned later that there's actually a reason for it.

Which is that the broth of ramen is so hot

that you really can't eat it unless you learn

to suck in air at the same time.

[David] That's fucking hot.

That's 72 Celsius.

Burn your face off.

There's infinite amount to learn.

I mean you can really go micro on the noodles, for example.

And I would say at least 70% of the products

that we make are ramen noodles.

Within the ramen noodles that we make,

we have about 600 different types of ramen noodles

that could be different from the type of flour blends,

the mixture of the water and ratios, the textures,

the thicknesses, the color.

And it really starts with the soup.

And so if the chef has a specific type of soup

or a type of ramen noodle they're looking to create,

then it's a very good base starting point for us

to start that conversation.

What is the last meal before I die?

Ramen, I hope.

I use a pressure cooker to get the high concentrated

juice from a chicken.

I can get very strong flavor from my ingredients.

Here we use kombu, chicken, sake, mirin,

of course soy sauce or sugar, salt.

Yeah, many seasonings.

It's a umami bomb.

You can't not taste, it's too high concentrated of taste.

It's very dynamic ramen.

In United States, I can do everything.

In Japan, if I make like a new totally new style of ramen

some people said, This is not ramen.

(speaking foreign language)

It's very boring to me that feeling.

They invariably expect old style.

Keep doing old style.

I just want to go to the new world,

which is United States,

then I can do more freestyle and then people enjoy.

(speaking foreign language)

Ramen's also a great example of the Japanese term, umami.

Umami meaning mouth-filling and savory.

And all kinds of soups have that,

they have fattiness, they have salt, they have a richness

that almost cannot be described in English.

Seaweed or kombu is in the broth

and that's a very important part of it.

People just love the salt and they crave the salt.

Mm, yeah.

[Julia] I think that the toppings concept

is something that is truly universal.

Things like shaved ice desserts, soft serve,

people love to customize and pile things on.

And ramen I think is one of the first things

that we experienced in terms of Japanese food

that was like that.

[Man Eating Ramen] I'll add this in here.

I will not miss the opportunity for some of this, oh yes.

The stage that we're at now with ramen

is let's make it our own.

We're going to the best part of a traditional bowl of ramen,

the things that we love

But also take from other cultures.

Ivan Ramen is combining two ancient cultures,

Jewish culture and Japanese culture.

This is how American food evolves.

We've done a wine experience with Chef Nakamura

where we said, what are some of the things

that we really enjoy about New York,

tomatoes, Italian influence, of cheese,

he said pizza was what he thought.

So what he created was a very beautiful chicken broth

paired with tomato sauce and sausage

and really stir fried it and poured the chicken broth over.

And then what we did was we made noodles

out of durum semolina with consee and ramen noodle flour

and crafted this beautiful Italian tomato ramen.

Things like the ramen cheeseburger,

which is something that was very popular

at food trucks a couple of years ago.

Where they literally took the blocks

that come in the instant ramen and deep fried them

and used them as the bun to make burgers.

Then there are things like dessert ramen

made of like a blue jello

and melted shaved ice.

I love jello!

[Kenshiro] Well you have all these

very creative young chefs coming up today that are really,

I think, pushing it to the edge.

[Shigetoshi] I believe I can do more typical ramen.

In part ramen allows you to be kind of free.

Maybe this is the reason why a lot more

people are interested

because you don't have so many strict guidelines

of this is what you can and cannot do.

But really you can express yourself in a bowl of ramen.