Noodles ── Ramen
Gatatan Ramen
Ashibetsu Gatatan Ramen — a repatriate's soup, poured over noodles
Ashibetsu's local dish gatatan, turned into ramen: a salt broth thickened with potato starch, loaded with vegetables, meat and seafood, and finished with a stream of beaten egg.
- Origin: Hokkaido Ashibetsu
- Shio — salt
- About 900 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
The base is a light salt broth thickened with potato starch and packed with vegetables, meat, seafood and wild greens, finished with a soft stream of beaten egg. Gatatan itself was originally a soup eaten without noodles; this version adds ramen noodles to it. Low in oil, it's known for sitting easy on the stomach.
How it's made
Wheat flour worked with water into small lumps called gaada (some shops substitute potato starch or rice flour) are simmered together with a heap of vegetables, meat, seafood and wild greens, then thickened with potato starch. Beaten egg is streamed in at the end before the whole soup is ladled over noodles. Some shops skip the gaada altogether, so the mix varies from kitchen to kitchen.
Why it took this shape
The story goes that after the war, a man named Toyonojo Murai, repatriated to Ashibetsu from Manchuria, served this soup at a Chinese restaurant called Koraku under the characters for 'gan-ta-tang'. The Chinese tradition of flour dumplings called gaada met a hearty, thickened soup suited to Ashibetsu's cold table, and noodles were folded in later to make it ramen.
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 Yamajio RamenSalt ramen seasoned with mountain salt drawn from hot-spring water — rounder than sea salt.
- Fukushima Tori PaitanA cloudy chicken broth built only on Fukushima's three brand hens — Aizu Jidori, Kawamata Shamo, and Date-dori. A relatively young local ramen, created by five shop owners banding together against post-disaster rumor damage.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Hokkaido
- Asahikawa RamenSoy-sauce broth built on seafood and pork bones, topped with lard so it stays hot. A response to the region's severe winters.
- Asahikawa HorumenA local dish that crosses Asahikawa's two soul foods — soy-sauce ramen and grilled pork offal. Pork offal, cleaned and prepped to remove its odor, sits on a soy-based broth. It was devised in Asahikawa in the 2010s.
- Bibai no TorimeshiChicken and onion are cooked into rice with soy sauce, sugar, and sake — said to trace back to a Meiji-era landowner in Bibai's Nakamura district who had tenant farmers raise chickens, then served them to guests.
- Bibai YakitoriOne skewer carries the whole bird — offal, skin and all.
- Biratori WagyuJapanese Black raised in Biratori, Hidaka, founded on breeding cattle brought from Shimane in 1962 — finished slowly through harsh winters, said to give the meat a notably deep flavor.
- Sake no Chanchan-yakiSalmon and seasonal vegetables are pan-steamed with miso and butter — said to trace back to fishing towns along the Ishikari coast, where it was cooked quickly on deck or shore right after the catch.