Noodles ── Ramen
Sutamina Ramen
Sutamina Ramen — soy ramen crowned with a spicy garlic-ginger meat and vegetable sauce, born in Omiya
Said to have been born at a diner by Omiya Station's west exit, this is a soy ramen crowned with a spicy meat-and-vegetable sauce. Ground pork, chives, and onion are stir-fried with garlic and ginger, then finished with soy sauce, doubanjiang, and a potato-starch thickener.
- Origin: Saitama Saitama (Omiya Ward)
- Shoyu — soy sauce
What it's made of
The base is an ordinary thin-noodle soy ramen, generously topped with a sauce of ground pork, chives, and onion stir-fried with garlic and ginger. Seasoned with soy sauce and doubanjiang and thickened with potato starch, the sauce looks and bites like mapo tofu with the tofu left out. Noodle, broth, and sauce sit in three layers, each at its own temperature and texture. As the sauce's heat slowly bleeds into the broth, the whole bowl is said to grow a little spicier and more fragrant the further you eat.
How it's made
The stock is a light soy consommé made from chicken bones, pork bones, and vegetables, kept deliberately mild. Onto it goes a separately made sauce, a two-part construction: the sauce is built by working garlic and ginger hard, then stir-frying ground meat and vegetables over high heat before finishing with soy sauce and doubanjiang for heat and potato starch for body. The same sauce also turns up on rice as "stamina curry" and folded into fried rice.
Why it took this shape
One account holds that it was born in the mid-1970s at a diner in front of Omiya Station's west exit, worked out through trial and error starting from mapo noodles. The pairing of a mild soy broth with a spicy sauce is said to have grown from the idea of putting mapo tofu, minus the tofu, onto ramen. In Omiya, a railway junction where people are always passing through, the bowl's spread as something quick to eat that gives you strength is reflected in the "stamina" of its name.
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 RamenFlat, thick hand-made noodles in a clear soy broth. Said to trace back to a Aizuwakamatsu diner owner bringing home a taste learned in Yokohama — a second soy ramen lineage that grew up apart from Kitakata's, in the same Aizu region.
- Edokei RamenA soy ramen topped with a knob of bright red chili miso built on garlic and garlic chives. Stirred in gradually as you eat, it turns a mild bowl steadily richer and spicier — a specialty of Akita City.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Saitama
- Sakekasu Miso RamenA winter-only ramen from Ageo City, where sake lees from a long-running local brewery are worked into a Chinese restaurant's miso broth. The lees' depth and aroma layer over the miso's savoriness, leaving a mellow finish that warms the body in the cold months.
- Dojo NiPond loach caught in the paddies of eastern Saitama, simmered sweet and savory with shaved burdock, from a land fed by the Arakawa and Tone rivers. Rich in nutrients, it was valued as a tonic and a food for pregnant women.
- Gyoda Furai"Furai" from around Gyoda, Saitama, despite its name, isn't fried — it's grilled. Chopped scallion and pork go on a wheat-flour batter cooked on a griddle, an okonomiyaki-like snack said to have caught on with the women working the town's tabi-sock factories.
- Higashimatsuyama YakitoriPork cheek grilled over charcoal and brushed with a spicy miso sauce.
- HiyajiruSesame and miso ground in a mortar, mixed with summer vegetables like cucumber and shiso, then chilled with cold water. It serves as a dipping broth for udon in noodle-loving Saitama, and Kawajima town calls it suttate.
- Iga ManjuA sweet bean bun wrapped in red rice and steamed, said to originate in Konosu. Named for its resemblance to a spiky chestnut burr, it balances a sweet-salty flavor with a chewy bite.