Noodles ── Ramen
Iekei Ramen
Iekei Ramen — Yokohama's pork-bone soy ramen finished with chicken fat
Pork bone and chicken carcass simmered long and finished with a dark soy tare and chicken fat, paired with thick, short noodles, spinach, and nori — traced to a shop that opened in 1974 in Yokohama's Shinsugita district and is said to have spread among workers in the surrounding industrial zone.
- Origin: Kanagawa Yokohama (Isogo Ward)
- Tonkotsu — pork bone
- About 40 km south of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
A deep, long-simmered stock of pork bone and chicken carcass is finished with a dark soy sauce tare and chicken fat. The chicken fat sits over the surface, trapping more heat than the bowl looks like it should hold, so it stays scalding to the last mouthful. The noodles are thick, short, and straight, built to carry the broth. Char siu, spinach, and square sheets of nori are the standard toppings, and customers are known for being able to dial in noodle firmness, broth richness, and the amount of chicken fat to order.
How it's made
The founder is said to have worked as a temple carpenter's apprentice, a barber's trainee, and a long-haul truck driver before training for about three years at a ramen shop in Tokyo and opening his own. The idea, as it's told, was that Kyushu-style pork bone and Tokyo-style soy sauce might taste good combined. The basic method is said to be simmering pork bone and chicken carcass separately and at length, then finishing with the dark soy tare.
Why it took this shape
The shop opened along a stretch of the Keihin industrial belt dense with factories, including what is now IHI, and is said to have built its reputation among the factory workers and truck drivers working there. A demand for a quick, high-calorie bowl to eat between shifts of physical labor reads as what pushed the style toward a rich broth, thick noodles, and a build-to-order system that lets a worker tune the bowl to how hungry, or how rushed, he is.
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
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Kanagawa
- DoriaButter rice topped with shrimp in cream, covered in white sauce and cheese and baked. Said to have been improvised at a Yokohama hotel for a guest who wasn't feeling well.
- Ebi MayoBattered, fried shrimp are tossed in a sweet mayonnaise-based sauce — said to have begun when a Cantonese chef, unsatisfied with a mayonnaise-dressed shrimp dish he'd eaten in the United States, remade it his own way.
- Gyu NabeA Yokohama-born hot pot of beef, tofu and chrysanthemum greens simmered from the start in a soy or miso-based sauce. Born of the port city's encounter with Western meat-eating culture, it is said to trace to a tavern owner who opened one of the first beef-pot restaurants.
- Harihari-zukeDaikon cut thicker than ordinary kiriboshi strips, dried, then pickled in a soy-based sauce — a Miura Peninsula specialty. Its name is said to echo the crisp "hari-hari" bite, developed in Miura, a daikon-growing region since the Edo period.
- Herahera DangoA confection from Sajima in Yokosuka City, flattened dumplings of wheat or glutinous rice flour coated in sweet bean paste. Offered at the shrine during a summer boat festival to pray for a good catch and good health, it is still shared among family.
- Hiratsuka-kei TanmenA clear, salt-based broth carries a faint edge of acidity, topped with wakame seaweed and chopped onion — a thinner, less thickened bowl than the typical Kanagawa tanmen, said to have taken root among Chinese-style diners in Hiratsuka.