Noodles ── Ramen
Arirang Ramen
Arirang Ramen — a soy ramen named for a mountain pass in a Korean folk song
A soy ramen said to have started at a single restaurant on a mountain pass in Chiba's Nagara. Named, it's said, for the legendary Arirang Pass of Korean folklore, its soy broth carries the sweetness of onion and pork, layered with house-made chili oil and grated garlic for depth and heat.
- Origin: Chiba Nagara
- Shoyu — soy sauce
- About 50 km southeast of Tokyo
What it's made of
A soy broth carrying the sweetness of plenty of onion and pork is layered with house-made chili oil and grated garlic for depth and heat. On the first slurp the onion's sweetness arrives, then chives and garlic chase in behind it. By the last bite a light sweat has usually broken out — a hearty, substantial bowl that lives up to its billing as a ramen with enough stamina to carry you over a mountain pass.
How it's made
Onion forms the base, stir-fried together with chives, garlic, pork, and scallion in a proprietary blend, finished spicy with soy tare and chili oil. The method is said to have been passed down within the family that runs the founding restaurant, and the broad strokes of the flavor hold even at branch shops. It's also sold by mail order and as a souvenir pack, so the taste travels beyond the restaurant itself.
Why it took this shape
One account holds that because the founding restaurant sat along a mountain pass road, it was named for the legendary Arirang Pass of Korean folklore — a ramen with enough stamina to cross it. The inland, hilly setting of Nagara in Chiba is itself thought to be the soil that grew a bowl built to sell on spice and stamina. A simple wish rooted in the setting itself — to give travelers on the pass some strength — is thought to show through in both the name and the flavor.
Before you go
- How to read a ticket machineShops that use a ticket machine (shokken-ki) often place their most popular items in a similar spot.
- Cash-only shops are commonEspecially at ramen shops, it's common to find places that only accept cash — often through a ticket machine.
- 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
- Aizu RamenFlat, thick hand-made noodles in a clear soy broth. Said to trace back to a Aizuwakamatsu diner owner bringing home a taste learned in Yokohama — a second soy ramen lineage that grew up apart from Kitakata's, in the same Aizu region.
- Edokei RamenA soy ramen topped with a knob of bright red chili miso built on garlic and garlic chives. Stirred in gradually as you eat, it turns a mild bowl steadily richer and spicier — a specialty of Akita City.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Contrast
- Katsuura TantanmenA soy soup flooded with chili oil, onion and minced pork — built to warm divers coming out of the sea.
- White Gaura RamenBorn in Sodegaura, a city known for dairy farming, this ramen runs on a white broth made with milk. Ginger tempers the milk's smell, and the name Gaura is a coined word for Sodegaura that also names the city's mascot.
Also from Chiba
- Barappa ManjuFreshly milled wheat dough is wrapped around red bean paste and steamed on a leaf of catbrier, called barappa locally — a bun said to be made in Chiba's Hokuso area when people gathered for summer festivals or Obon, each bringing ingredients to share.
- Iwashi no Unohana-zukeSalt-and-vinegar-cured sardines are packed into sweet-vinegared tofu lees with carrot and ginger — the pale lees are likened to unohana blossoms in the name, and are also said to keep the fish from breaking apart or oxidizing; eaten at New Year's and as an everyday pantry food.
- Rakkasei MisoPeanuts too small or misshapen to sell are stirred into miso and sugar and toasted into a pantry relish — said to have started as a way for farm households to use up peanuts the market wouldn't take, in leaner years.
- SumitsukareDaikon and carrot, coarsely grated with a rough-toothed oni-oroshi grater, are simmered with leftover setsubun soybeans and sake lees — said to have traveled from Tochigi into Chiba's Higashikatsushika area, offered to the local inari shrine on the year's first Day of the Horse before being eaten. Ibaraki and Saitama carry dishes of the same name.
- Yude RakkaseiFreshly dug peanuts, still in their shells, are boiled whole in salted water — a taste unique to the growing region, since raw peanuts start hardening the moment they're pulled from the ground and need to be boiled almost immediately.
- Chikko ToufuA cow's first milk after calving is warmed and split with a little vinegar into a plain curd — tied to the story of shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune's white cattle raised at the Mineoka pastures, said to be the start of dairy farming in Japan, and long eaten among the region's dairy households.