Noodles ── Ramen
Takaida Ramen
extra-thick noodles in dark chicken soy
Udon-thick straight noodles in a dark, chicken-based soy broth.
- Origin: Osaka Higashiosaka
- Shoyu — soy sauce
- About 390 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Dip your chopsticks in and you'll find noodles so thick they could pass for udon. The broth is a dark, chicken-based soy stock with a clear, assertive saltiness, its surface dotted with beads of rendered fat and the smell of soy rising with the steam. The noodles themselves are dense and chewy, each strand substantial enough to notice on its own. Toppings stay minimal — a few slices of char siu, some bamboo shoots — leaving the pairing of thick noodle and heavy broth to carry the bowl, and it leaves you full well before the last strand is gone.
How it's made
The dough is rolled out to a thickness closer to udon than ramen, then boiled longer than usual while keeping its firm bite intact — that's said to be the core of this style, and getting the center cooked through without losing the chew is the hard part. A chicken-bone stock is combined with a dark soy tare, kept relatively light on oil. Toppings are kept to a minimum, so the contrast between the thick noodle and the heavy broth stays the center of attention. Many shops in this style also open unusually early in the day.
Why it took this shape
This stretch of Osaka was once dense with small factories, and the style is said to have taken root among workers coming off night shifts for an early-morning bowl. A body that's sweated through a shift craves salt, and the thick, heavy soy broth answered that. The filling, chewy noodles and the low price made sense for laborers on a break, and the dish is said to have been quietly shaped, well before the word "ramen" itself had settled into common use, into a meal built to feed the stomachs of people working the early and late shifts of this district.
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 Osaka
- AkanekoSteamed sticky rice pounded with wheat flour is dusted with sugar and soybean flour — also called hangesho mochi, for the rite marking the end of rice planting. The whole-ground wheat flour once left the mochi brownish, said to resemble a cat's round back and give the dish its name.
- BatteraThin slices of vinegared mackerel and white kelp sheet are pressed together in a wooden mold. A sushi shop in Minami-Senba is said to have devised it in 1891, naming it after the Portuguese word for a small boat because the original version, made with konoshiro, resembled one.
- Beni Shoga TenThin slices of red ginger, pickled in plum vinegar, are battered and deep-fried. The plum vinegar's tang and the ginger's bite are said to suit drinks well, and the fritter appears as a one-sen tempura in Sakunosuke Oda's 1940 novella 'Meoto Zenzai,' evidence of how long it has fed ordinary Osakans.
- Beni-zuiki to Aburaage no TaitanBeni-zuiki, reddish taro leaf-stalks that can grow to 2 meters tall, is soaked in vinegared water to remove its bitterness, then simmered with fried tofu in dashi and soy sauce — a summer obanzai dish. Its spongy cross-section is said to soak up flavor well, and it has been named a Naniwa specialty product.
- Dote YakiParboiled beef tendon simmers for a long time against a bank of miso and mirin piled around the pan's edge like a levee, or dote. Rich and sweet-savory, it pairs well with drinks and is said to be a beloved downtown Osaka food, with many shops concentrated in the Shinsekai district.
- EhomakiA thick sushi roll eaten whole and in silence while facing the year's auspicious direction on Setsubun, the last day of winter. Its origin is not settled, but theories passed down include a game among the geisha quarters and a prayer for prosperity by Osaka's Semba merchant houses.