Noodles ── Ramen
Shida-kei Ramen
Shida-kei Ramen — a lineage of clear, fat-trimmed soy broths from the tea country of Shida
A soy ramen lineage from the Shida area around Fujieda and Yaizu, built on a fat-trimmed, clear pork-bone broth sharpened with bonito dashi. Shops modeling themselves on one said to date to the Taisho era, customers often order a hot and a cold bowl together.
- Origin: Shizuoka Fujieda
- Shoyu — soy sauce
- About 160 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
A clean bonito dashi, with the fat trimmed to a minimum, rises together with the scent of shoyu. Built on pork bone but clarified rather than clouded, it looks clear and light, yet the bonito's umami quietly catches up from underneath as you slurp. Ordering a hot bowl and a cold bowl together is also said to be characteristic of this lineage, a build that never lets itself feel heavy.
How it's made
Pork bone is simmered into a clear broth, then combined with bonito dashi and a shoyu tare. Many shops across the Shida area are said to model themselves after one dating to the Taisho era, and it's from serving as that benchmark that the name Shida-kei, or "Shida lineage," is said to come. Serving a hot and a cold ramen side by side is also said to carry on the model shop's own custom, so even the way one orders becomes a mark of the lineage.
Why it took this shape
The Shida area, spanning Fujieda to Yaizu, is known as tea country, and during the peak of the tea harvest, growers and merchants working before dawn are said to have needed an early meal. A light, clear-broth ramen taking root here seems tied to the rhythm of a tea industry that needed a bowl filling enough for early morning but not too heavy to work through, the brisk pace of the tea fields perhaps echoed in the pace of slurping the noodles.
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
Contrast
- Fujieda Asa RamenA town that eats ramen at breakfast — often a hot bowl followed by a cold one.
- Shimizu Motsu Curry RamenA ramen topped with motsu curry, a stewed-offal curry said to have originated in Shimizu, Shizuoka City, blending curry know-how learned in Manchuria with a simmering style reminiscent of Nagoya's dote-ni. Ingredients and curry color vary from shop to shop.
Also from Shizuoka
- Abekawa MochiFresh-pounded rice cake is dusted in soybean flour mixed with sugar. Named for the Abe River, it's said to have been famous among Tokaido travelers as a teahouse specialty and to appear in the travel novel Tokaidochu Hizakurige.
- BokumeshiSteamed eel and shaved burdock are simmered together and folded into freshly cooked rice. Its name is said to trace to oversized eels unfit for sale, used in staff meals at eel farms along the Oi River — a mixed rice dish of the region.
- Fuji KinkaBred by Shizuoka Prefecture by crossing its own Duroc line, Fujirock, with Jinhua, a rare breed from China's Zhejiang province — found only in Shizuoka. Said to combine Jinhua's tenderness with Fujirock's marbling.
- Fujinomiya YakisobaIt grew up as a postwar snack at Fujinomiya's candy shops and okonomiyaki stalls. Its identity rests on three local staples: chewy steamed noodles, pork-lard cracklings called nikukasu, and a sardine-powder topping called dashiko.
- GawaRaw bonito is minced and mixed into a chilled miso broth with cucumber, pickled plum, and shiso. Its name is said to come from the "gawa-gawa" sound of stirring miso into ice water aboard a fishing boat — originally a summer meal made at sea.