Home-style ── Machi-chuka (Japanese-Chinese diner food)
Jaajaamen
Jaajaamen — noodles under a sweet-savory meat miso sauce, in the Japanese Chinese-restaurant style
Noodles topped with a meat miso of minced pork and similar ingredients stir-fried in miso. Beijing's zhajiang noodles are described as plain home cooking, while at Chinese restaurants in Japan a sweet-savory, thickened version is common nationwide. It is considered a separate line from Morioka's jajamen.
Lineage
What it's made of
A generous mound of meat miso, minced pork stir-fried in miso, sits on boiled noodles with julienned cucumber alongside. At Chinese restaurants in Japan it is often sweet with sugar, well salted, and thickened into an ankake sauce. Zhajiang noodles eaten in Beijing contain very little meat and are described as plain food, something like ochazuke.
How it's made
Minced meat and finely cut vegetables are stir-fried in miso to make meat miso, then put over thick noodles. Japanese shops often thicken the sauce with starch so it clings to the whole bowl. In China, cucumber and red radish slices go on the noodles and diners mix it themselves, so the thickened form is a Japanese-version trait.
Why it took this shape
Because Japan's jajamen has nearly the same thickened form at Chinese restaurants nationwide, a common source dish is thought to have existed. Korean, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese versions are also sweeter and closer to ankake, so it has been suggested that it came to Japan by way of one of them. Morioka's jajamen, by contrast, is said to have begun when a returnee from the former Manchuria served a version based on the zhajiang noodles eaten there.
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.