Noodles ── Ramen
Takaoka Green Ramen
Takaoka Green Ramen — a pork broth turned green with local spinach, echoing the city's copper-green landmarks
A pork-bone broth turned green with pureed Takaoka spinach — devised in 2012 by local volunteers to translate a city long associated with the color green into a bowl of ramen.
- Origin: Toyama Takaoka
- Tonkotsu — pork bone
- About 270 km northwest of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
The broth runs a vivid green, spinach worked into a cloudy pork-bone base. Under the richness of the pork bone sits a faint green, leafy note, and the bowl is finished with chili miso and char siu dressed in yuzu pepper to sharpen the flavor. For all its visual punch, the taste stays mellow.
How it's made
Local Takaoka-grown spinach is pureed and worked into pork-bone broth until it turns green — that's the rule. Toppings include char siu sliced thin and dressed in yuzu pepper, plus chili miso, and only shops meeting three conditions — green color, Takaoka spinach, and the name itself — may call their bowl Takaoka Green Ramen.
Why it took this shape
Takaoka is a city that calls green to mind — the greenery of Takaoka Kojo Park, the verdigris patina on its copper ware and Great Buddha. In 2012, local volunteers inspired by Nyuzen's brown ramen are said to have translated the city's own color straight into a bowl of ramen.
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
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Related lineage
- Nyuzen Brown RamenA rich broth of secret miso brewed from prefecture-grown rice and soybeans, shrimp extract layered in — devised in 2010 by Nyuzen's chamber of commerce youth division to counter the nationally famous Toyama Black.
- Oyabe White RamenA pork-bone broth simmered pale white and topped with sweet-savory ground pork miso — devised in 2012 by Oyabe's chamber of commerce youth division and since spread to more than thirty shops in the city.
Also from Toyama
- Bai no NimonoWhelks from the deep waters of Toyama Bay are simmered whole in their shells — said to appear at celebrations thanks to a play on words suggesting doubled good fortune, with smaller whelks simmered and larger ones eaten raw.
- BekkoMelted agar is seasoned with soy sauce and mirin, then set with egg trailed in like threads — its amber color flecked with egg said to resemble a tortoiseshell hair ornament, giving the dish its name; in the west of the prefecture it goes by "yubeshi" instead.
- BurishabuThin slices of yellowtail are swished briefly through kelp broth, said to cook only the surface while leaving the center rare — versions using Himi's branded winter yellowtail are considered a particularly luxurious cold-weather treat.
- Genge no MisoshiruEelpout, a deep-sea fish covered in a gelatinous layer, is cut into chunks and simmered into a miso soup — long treated as an unwanted bycatch of sweet shrimp fishing, its flavor has since been reappraised and spread beyond the fishing villages that first ate it.
- Himi UdonA hand-stretched udon developed in Himi, Toyama, in the mid-Edo period by adapting somen-making techniques from Wajima. It was once presented to the Kaga domain as tribute.
- Hoonko RyoriA catch-all term for the dishes served at houonko, the memorial gathering held on the death anniversary of Jodo Shinshu's founder — the season's better vegetables and wild greens are said to be set aside for it apart from everyday use, with the devout Gokayama area of Nanto known for hearty stews of dried greens and local tofu.