Ramen
Ramen is a Japanese dish of wheat noodles served in broth, usually with toppings such as sliced pork, scallions, and soft-boiled egg.
Ramen broth: A seasoned liquid base for ramen, commonly made from meat, seafood, or vegetables. Its ingredients and cooking time establish much of a bowl’s body and flavor.
Sapporo ramen: A Hokkaido style commonly featuring miso-seasoned broth, curly noodles, and toppings such as corn and butter. It exemplifies a hearty regional style associated with ramen’s northern Japanese home.
Chinese noodles: A broad family of noodle foods developed across China, made from grains such as wheat or rice. Chinese noodle traditions provided precedents for the dish that became ramen.
Ramen shop: A restaurant specializing in ramen, often serving a focused menu of broth and noodle styles. Shop specialization shaped ramen into a craft built around consistent bowls.
Udon: A Japanese noodle dish featuring thick wheat noodles, served hot in broth or cold with dipping sauce. Udon uses wheat noodles too, but its noodles are thicker and lack ramen’s alkaline character.
Tare: A concentrated seasoning added to ramen broth, often based on soy sauce, miso, or salt. Tare gives the broth its defining style and salt level.
Hakata ramen: A Fukuoka style known for thin, straight noodles and rich pork-bone broth. Its noodles and broth create a sharply different regional balance.
Yokohama Chinatown: A historic Chinese district in Yokohama, Japan, established in the nineteenth century. Chinese food shops there helped introduce noodle dishes that influenced early ramen.
Instant noodle: A pre-cooked, dried noodle product designed for quick preparation, often sold with seasoning. Instant ramen belongs to this wider category of convenient packaged food.
Soba: Japanese noodles made primarily from buckwheat flour, served in hot broth or chilled with dipping sauce. Its buckwheat-based noodles distinguish it from ramen’s wheat noodles.