Noodles ── Ramen
Karamen
Karamen — Nobeoka's fiery noodle in a chili-red broth
A fiery noodle dish that started in Nobeoka, Miyazaki Prefecture. Said to have begun in 1987 as a side dish at an izakaya, with a firm noodle made from wheat and buckwheat flour served in a broth dyed deep red with chili.
- Origin: Miyazaki Nobeoka
- Besides shoyu, miso, shio and tonkotsu
- About 820 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
A deep red, fiercely spicy broth pairs with a noodle so firm it's been compared to konnyaku. The noodle is made from wheat and buckwheat flour, with egg, minced meat, garlic, chili, and chives as the standard toppings. Adding cheese or tomato to taste has also become common, and the dish is often described as offering both heat and a distinctively firm bite.
How it's made
A chili-forward broth is prepared and combined with the distinctively firm noodle, topped with egg, minced meat, garlic, and chives. One account traces it to 1987, when an izakaya in Nobeoka devised it as a late-night side dish after drinking; that shop's version is still called the original karamen. Shops adjusting the heat level to taste is also cited as part of why the dish spread so widely.
Why it took this shape
Served as a way to close out a night of drinking, the dish is said to have needed enough heat to register on a dulled palate and a noodle firm enough to feel substantial. Karamen grew as a lineage apart from Miyazaki's other ramen, and a television feature is said to have carried it to national attention.
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
Contrast
Also from Miyazaki
- Chikin NanbanFried chicken dipped in sweet vinegar and topped with tartar sauce, said to have originated in Nobeoka, Miyazaki. It's said to trace to a sweet-vinegar fried chicken devised as staff food at a Western-food restaurant in the 1950s.
- Futatabi DangoDumpling flour is kneaded, steamed with freshly picked mugwort folded in, then pounded a second time — a Nobeoka treat named for that unusual second working of the dough, wrapped around sweet bean paste and dusted with soybean flour into a soft, pale-green dumpling.
- Hie-zushiWild boar bones are simmered into a broth, then rice, millet, and vegetables are added and cooked down into a porridge — a Shiiba village dish built on millet, a grain said to have been eaten in Japan since before rice farming; whenever a boar was dressed, the porridge it made was shared around the whole village to see out the long winter.
- Hyuga Kurokawa Kabocha no NimonoHyuga kurokawa kabocha, a black-skinned heirloom pumpkin first grown in Miyazaki City, is cut into large chunks and simmered slowly in sugar and light soy sauce — lighter and less sweet than a Western pumpkin, but it holds its shape well and its skin is good to eat too.
- Iriko MochiGlutinous rice is parched and ground into iriko flour, then kneaded with starch syrup, rested, and cut into bars — a Miyazaki sweet said to have arrived from the Satsuma domain as a festival treat, once handed out to neighbors to wish for a child's healthy growth.
- Jidori no Miso KorobakashiJidori chicken is rolled around a dry pan with no added water, coaxed with a miso glaze without letting it catch — a home-cooked dish from around Kobayashi City, its name a western-Miyazaki dialect word for tumbling food in a pot as it cooks, the mix of vegetables and seasoning varying from house to house.