Noodles ── Ramen
Chanraa
Chanraa — chanpon noodles dropped into a Japanese-style broth
A noodle dish said to have started at a diner in Moji, Kitakyushu. Chanpon-style noodles go into a Japanese dried-sardine broth closer to udon than to the original pork-and-seafood soup, devised, it's said, for a student who wanted Nagasaki champon but couldn't afford it.
- Origin: Fukuoka Kitakyushu (Moji Ward)
- Besides shoyu, miso, shio and tonkotsu
- About 830 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
The noodles are the same thick style used in Nagasaki champon, but the broth is a Japanese dried-sardine stock closer to udon soup than to champon's original pork-and-seafood base. The original toppings were simple — bean sprouts and cabbage — though some shops today add pork. The name is said to echo a blend of champon and ramen, and the dish carries a small surprise: it looks like champon but tastes of a Japanese broth.
How it's made
A dried-sardine-forward Japanese broth is prepared, and the thick champon-style noodles are simmered in it. One account traces it to Moji's Kiyomi Shokudo, where the owner heard a junior-high student who had moved from Nagasaki say she wanted champon but couldn't afford it, and answered with an affordable dish combining a Japanese broth and champon noodles. Simply adding raw bean sprouts and cabbage without stir-frying them first is also part of the dish's simplicity.
Why it took this shape
Moji was a port town with heavy traffic to and from the Nagasaki area, so people who knew the taste of champon were close at hand. Real champon, loaded with pork and seafood, cost more to make, and substituting an everyday Japanese broth with bean sprouts and cabbage is said to have produced this hybrid bowl. In 2016 a tie-in bento sold across Kyushu to mark a new expressway opening is said to have helped carry the dish's name further afield.
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
- Abura SobaNo broth is poured at all — noodles are tossed in a soy-and-sesame-oil tare pooled at the bottom of the bowl, said to have started at shops in the Musashino area in the late 1950s, with vinegar and chili oil stirred in partway through.
- Betokon RamenA garlic-and-chili stamina ramen said to have originated in Ichinomiya, Aichi, devised from a repatriate's memories of Manchurian cooking. Its name is said to come directly from what customers started calling it.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Fukuoka
- Abutte KamoSmall damselfish are salted overnight, then grilled whole, scales and innards left on — a bony fish often passed over elsewhere, but said to have caught on in Hakata Bay after a Meiji-era glut led someone to salt and grill the excess.
- Achara ZukeWhite melon, eggplant, and lotus root are pickled in a sweet vinegar spiked with red chili — the name is said to trace to the Portuguese 'achar', carried in through Hakata Bay's old trade, and an odd number of vegetables is used for Obon hospitality.
- Amagi no KawatakeA rare wild freshwater algae, found only in the Kogane River in Asakura, is dressed with sweet or three-flavor vinegar — said to have once been presented to the shogun, and now conservation efforts continue as it's listed as endangered.
- Beta MochiWheat dough is flattened, steamed, and topped with soybean flour or sweet red bean paste — named, it's said, for its resemblance to a flat local sole called 'beta', and tied to the feast marking the end of rice planting.
- Kabocha no Dango JiruA giant local pumpkin from Buzen's Mikkado district is simmered soft, then torn wheat dumplings are dropped in — the pumpkin, said to trace some 450 years back to Portuguese traders, was once a lifeline in leaner years.
- Ebi ZakkoSeveral kinds of small shrimp are quickly simmered in sweetened soy, and the leftover broth then cooks somen noodles — a fisherman's way of using up the mixed catch of small shrimp hauled from the Buzen Sea while it's still fresh.