Home-style ── Machi-chuka (Japanese-Chinese diner food)
Tantanmen
Tantanmen — a Japanese sesame-and-chili noodle soup, adapted from a dry Sichuan noodle snack
Ramen noodles go into a chili-and-sesame soup topped with minced pork — Sichuan's original dandan noodles are a small, brothless dish, tossed rather than served in soup, but Japan's version is said to have been rebuilt as a full bowl of soup noodles.
Lineage
What it's made of
Lean in over the bowl and sesame's toasty aroma and chili oil's sting hit first, followed by the fat and savor of the minced pork topping. China's dandan noodles are a light snack, a small amount of sauce tossed in a small bowl; the Japanese version is said to come with a full measure of soup, built as a complete meal in one bowl.
How it's made
A soup combining sesame sauce, chili oil, and a soy-based stock is poured over stir-fried minced pork, and boiled noodles are settled in. Where the original was a tossed, brothless dish born of not having to carry soup around, the Japanese version is rebuilt as a full bowl of soup noodles, with the balance of chili oil and sesame setting each shop's own level of heat and aroma.
Why it took this shape
One account holds that once a chef from Sichuan introduced a version reworked for Japanese taste, the originally brothless dandan noodles spread nationwide as a full bowl of soup noodles instead. The original's 'no broth' constraint, born of being carried and sold from a shoulder pole, is thought to no longer have applied in Japan — one reason the shape changed.
Before you go
- Yokohama ChinatownSaid to be one of the largest Chinatowns in Japan, with more than 150 Chinese restaurants and food shops. Offerings range widely from street snacks to formal course meals.
- How to shop at a supermarketHow to choose prepared foods, sashimi, and packaged sushi, when discount stickers tend to appear, region-only specialties, buying by weight, the checkout and bagging flow, and sampling etiquette at a local supermarket.
- Foods to look for in summerA guide to foods often seen in Japan around summer — eel on the Day of the Ox, hiyashi chuka, somen, shaved ice, edamame with beer, and hamo — with rough pointers for finding them.
Dishes in the same style
- Annin-dofuA dessert descended from Chinese medicinal cooking that uses apricot kernels. In Japan it is often made with milk and almond essence, and the Hong Kong style of fruit and jelly floating in syrup took hold at Chinese restaurants and in school lunches.
- BambanjiSteamed chicken pulled into shreds and dressed with a sauce rich in ground sesame, served cold. It is based on a Sichuan dish, and in Japan a milder, sweeter sesame sauce with cucumber and other vegetables became the norm.