Noodles ── Yakisoba
Ina Romen
Ina Romen — Nagano's steamed-noodle stir-fry of mutton and cabbage
A local dish from Ina, Nagano: steamed Chinese-style noodles stir-fried with mutton, cabbage, and garlic. It's said to have started as a yakisoba-style dish, with its current name settling in later under the influence of Japan's ramen boom.
- Origin: Nagano Ina
- About 160 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Mutton's distinct fat and a strong hit of garlic come first, with cabbage's sweetness catching up behind them. The noodles are steamed Chinese-style noodles, kept plumper than typical yakisoba. Most shops fry off nearly all the liquid, leaving only a thin, glossy coating of sauce on the plate.
How it's made
Steamed noodles, mutton, cabbage, and garlic are stir-fried hard together on a griddle or in a wok and finished with a house sauce. Frying the liquid off entirely, rather than serving it in broth, is the standard form, handled much like yakisoba. Many diners finish it with vinegar or chili pepper to sharpen the flavor.
Why it took this shape
One account holds that around 1950, a yakisoba-style dish born from local requests was first called "cha-romen." As Japan's ramen boom took off afterward, the name is said to have settled into its present form, "romen," while the dish itself kept a build much closer to yakisoba — only its ingredients and name shifted with the place.
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.
- 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.
- Tanabata and festival food stallsA guide to the somen said to be eaten on Tanabata, and to festival-stall staples like yakisoba, takoyaki, candy apples, and shaved ice.
Dishes in the same style
- Abura ZomenPork and somen are fried together with a splash of broth, the oil and stock emulsifying into a silky coat on the noodles. Just how somen took root in wheat-free Amami isn't clear, but the dish is a fixture whenever people gather, not least for the August Dance festival.
- Aizu Curry YakisobaA dish from Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima: sauce yakisoba topped with curry roux. It's said to trace to a diner called Tommy Food, which began ladling curry over its yakisoba, catching on especially among young diners for its low price and filling size.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Nagano
- Anyoji RamenSaku's miso ramen built around Anyoji miso, held to be the root of Shinshu miso.
- Gudakusan Miso ShiruRoot vegetables like daikon, carrot, and burdock go generously into this everyday miso soup of Nagano. Packing it with vegetables is said to allow less miso overall, and wheat dumplings are sometimes dropped in to make it a meal in itself.
- HangoroshiSticky rice, pounded only halfway to a texture called hangoroshi, is coated in sweet bean paste or roasted soybean flour — eastern Nagano's version of botamochi and ohagi, called one name in spring and the other in autumn, a festive sweet that busy farm households could put together quickly.
- Hitashi MameGreen soybeans are boiled until still faintly crisp, then steeped in a lightly seasoned dashi — a dish of northern and eastern Nagano also made with the saddle-marked kurakake bean, sometimes paired with herring roe as part of New Year's osechi.
- Hoshikabocha no EgomaaeKabocha squash, sliced into strips and sun-dried until brittle, is rehydrated and tossed in ground perilla seed — a preserved dish of the Kinasa area born from the need to keep squash, which spoils easily over winter, also used simmered or as filling for oyaki.
- Hoba MakiRice-flour dough kneaded with hot water wraps sweet bean paste, then steams inside a magnolia leaf — a Kiso festival mochi. With no oak trees in the mountains, magnolia stood in, and locals say the leaf's scent settles in best the next day.