The Ramen Museum

After the rain stopped this weekend, I went to the Ramen museum in Shin Yokohama with Rachel and Brett and the Motoguchis, a Japanese family they are friends with. Before going, I had some misconceptions about both the ramen and the museum concepts and I thought we were just going there because there wasn't much to do in Shin Yokohama. I stand corrected.

Ramen in Japan means far more than the crunchy instant noodle packages we have in the United States. It's a thick soup with noodles and other accoutrements, and each region has its own speciality. It's an extremely popular dish (the museum was packed with adults who were locals at 7 pm on Sunday) and has become a cultural phenomenon. A friend told me there's a Japanese western about a ramen shop, and it seems there are dozens of blogs just about ramen.

Museum also isn't quite the right word-- upstairs there was a gift shop and exhibits featuring iconic moments in the history of ramen development (the invention of microwaveable instant ramen, a replica of the first-ever ramen dish eaten by a samurai in the 17th century), but downstairs was a historical noodle extravaganza.

Below the conventional museum was a two-story replica of a bustling Japanese town from around 1958. The dimly lit streets were packed with museum-goers and alongside there were pubs and even a 'love hotel' patrons could step into. Police, with thickly drawn-on eyebrows, stood ready to answer questions. As we stayed in the museum, the sky overhead grew darker. It was a little like MainStreet or Epcot, but with an attention to real life detail Disneyland lacks. I could hear the sounds of stray cats mewing and war planes-- taking troops south to Vietnam?-- overhead. It was so convincing that when I got "lost" in a dark ally I felt nervous momentarily (this was all inside the building.)

There were old fashion booths with shooting games, palinko, and this game where everyone was given a small, brittle piece square with a shape etched in it. The goal was to cut your shape out of the material using a needle while leaving both the inside and outside intact. If you were really good, you then tried to write your name on the surface of that cut-out. None of us got that far. The kids all played a game to win a prize where they went to each booth and played "rock paper scissors" with the booth attendants. If they won, they got a sticker on their card. If they lost, the attendant punched a heart-shaped hole out of their card. To win, they needed to get six stickers before losing three hearts. The Motoguchi kids were good at rock paper scissors, but the odds were against them. The attendants were unyielding, even in the face of five-year old Su-chan's tears. We later found out the prize was a lollipop with a bowl of ramen on it. Should have figured.

Eventually, we went to the town square, around which were ramen shops run by chefs from 8 of the best regional ramen shops in Japan. Part of the premise of the museum is that visitors can try all the types of ramen in Japan without leaving Shin Yokohama. I had a 'floor guide' with multilingual descriptions of all the varieties. The English translations are very cute, so I have to share some of the best excerpts:

-Id Shoten: "Pork bones boiled at high heat let out melting gelatin, emulsifying the fat in the soup, which gives the soy sauce base a mellow sensation."

-Keyaki: "Amber soup contrasts nicely with a pure white bowl. Fine stripes of cibol, chopped green cabbage, orange carrots and black Jew's ears make a colorful pile in the middle of your bowl. Having your stomach excited by the aroma of miso, you can't wait to sip the soup. First, you may feel the richness of the soup, and then the mildness in the far back of your tongue. You will also feel juicy of grounded meat and hot pepper in it, and you will not want to stop your spoon."

-Hachiya: "Hachiya has succeeded in making ramen of a powerful taste by adding grilled lard to the noodles and broth. The lard masking the surface of the broth will be a shock to those who visit Hachiya for the first time." Yum, lard and fat-emulsifying gelatin.

-Harukiya: "The bowl looks simple, but when you sip at the soup, you feel multiple levels of complex flavor and richness combined with fish aroma excite your brain. You will not come to yourself until you finish the whole bowl."

Our brains excited, we got Komurasaki (pork, chicken broth, seaweed, garlic) ramen first. It was delicious. You order from a vending machine, diner style, and choose between king size, regular, and sample size. Unlike Japanese convenience store food, even the sample sizes were huge, so we pretty much came to ourselves and were able to stop our spoons after two samples, despite the excitedness of our brains.

The Motoguchi family was politely encouraging of my efforts to use hashi throughout the meal. Su-Chan was justifiably amused by my chopstick-as-fork technique when I wound noodles around the sticks spaghetti-style, and I think they were embarrassed she'd brought attention to the fact I was an embarrassment to myself. On the way out, they gave me my very own pair of hashi they had bought from the museum gift shop. They are beautiful, and it was so sweet of them! Even though I have silverware in my apartment, I'm going to try to practice eating everything with them.