Noodles ── Ramen
Tempura Ramen
Iwanai Tempura Ramen — a soba shop's tempura, dropped into ramen
A specialty of Iwanai, at the foot of the Shakotan Peninsula: a light chicken-and-bonito broth, salted or soy-based, topped with one or two pieces of freshly fried shrimp tempura — said to have started as a soba shop's tempura, dropped into ramen instead.
- Origin: Hokkaido Iwanai
- Shio — salt
- About 810 km north of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
The base is a light broth of chicken bones and bonito, finished with salt or soy sauce. What marks the bowl is one or two pieces of freshly fried shrimp tempura on top, paired with loosely curled, medium-thin noodles. Part of the pleasure is watching the batter soften as it soaks up the broth.
How it's made
Chicken and bonito stock is kept light, then seasoned with salt or soy sauce. Because the shrimp is fried to order, many shops don't start the tempura until an order comes in. Mixed-vegetable fritters were once more common, but from around the 1980s a single piece of shrimp tempura became the standard topping.
Why it took this shape
Iwanai is a fishing town in the Shiribeshi region where tempura soba was already a local favorite. Around 1940, a regular at the soba shop Fukuian is said to have asked for the tempura from his tempura soba to be dropped into ramen instead. That small request, borrowed from a neighboring noodle dish, grew into a name the town has kept.
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 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.
- Gatatan RamenAshibetsu'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.
- 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.