Noodles ── Ramen
Sanriku Iso Ramen
Sanriku Iso Ramen — a coast road diner's seaweed ramen
A seaweed-topped ramen born at a drive-in in Otsuchi, Iwate. A light soy-seasoned broth built on Japanese-style dashi is piled high with seaweeds like wakame and matsumo, plus scallop, shrimp and squid.
- Origin: Iwate Otsuchi
- Shoyu — soy sauce
- About 450 km northeast of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
The base is a light broth of Japanese-style dashi — bonito and a few kinds of seaweed — touched with just a little soy sauce. On top goes a heap of Sanriku seaweeds like wakame, funori and matsumo, along with scallop, shrimp, squid and crab. It reads as light yet full-flavored, and generous enough to be a meal on its own.
How it's made
Bonito and several seaweeds are simmered into a Japanese-style stock, lightly seasoned with soy sauce for a delicate broth. Wakame, funori and matsumo gathered along the Sanriku coast go on top along with scallop, shrimp, squid and crab, paired with old-fashioned, softer noodles.
Why it took this shape
Otsuchi is a fishing town facing the Sanriku coast, and the dish is said to have started around 1969 at a roadside diner called Kirikiri Drive-in, which built a ramen around the seaweed and seafood landed nearby. In a place where the sea's bounty was always close at hand, putting it straight into a bowl of ramen was a natural step, and the dish has since spread along the whole Sanriku coastline.
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
Related lineage
Also from Iwate
- Azuki BattoRested wheat dough cut into wide noodle strips is served in a sugar-sweetened red-bean broth — made along the Sanriku coast for building-raising and harvest celebrations, with a custom of eating it seven times on the seventh day of Obon for good health.
- Hecchoko DangoDumplings of millet and sorghum flour, each dimpled in the center, are simmered in a sweet red-bean soup — also called "ukiuki dango," a harvest-close treat from rice-poor northern Iwate where they float to the surface as they cook.
- Hina ManjuRice-flour dough tinted with food coloring is wrapped around red-bean paste and shaped into flowers, peaches or rabbits using wooden molds — tied to a doll-viewing custom in Hanamaki's Ohasama area, offered alongside kirisensho at the Girls' Festival.
- Hizu NamasuThin slices of cartilage from a salmon's head — "hizu" — are salted, cured in vinegar and tossed with daikon and carrot namasu — a rare delicacy from just one small part of the fish, a New Year dish where salmon run up Miyako Bay.
- Dento Mochi RyoriAn umbrella term for some 300 ways of dressing mochi — sweet red bean, edamame paste, walnut, natto, zoni and more. A domain-era custom of pounding mochi twice a month left Ichinoseki with a "mochi calendar" of 60-plus occasions a year and a formal ceremonial mochi course still observed today.
- Imo no Ko JiruAutumn taro is simmered with chicken, tofu, daikon and carrot in a soy broth — a fall favorite of the taro-growing Kitakami river valley, still enjoyed at riverside "imoni-kai" gatherings around Kitakami's Futako district.