I was in Japan for a brief visit, stayed in a hotel away
from the crowds, and hadn’t had time to do my usual noodle run. When I
arrived at Haneda airport for my flight back to NY early one morning, I was
facing the predicament of leaving Japan without having had a bowl of
Ramen. But, wandering about in the
food court upstairs I found a Ramen shop by the name of Setagaya, with a notice
that it would open at 5 a.m. Inside,
as the shop prepared for their morning opening, steam swirled up
from boiling cauldrons. There is
an elemental, immediate thrill to a Ramen shop, as the customers, the cooks, and the kitchen equipment are squeezed together in this space constrained country –giving
the noodles a dash of supernatural magic. At 5 am sharp the restaurant opened and I was the first
customer. I paid thru the
customary coin slot machine and settled in at the bar counter waiting for
my meal. Setugaya is a well known chain with 5 branches and their specialty is a
seafood based broth. The texture and flavor of the broth in Japan is a class apart from what is available generally in the US. This is
not hyperbole. There is a certain depth to Ramen in Japan, like a mathematical formula with
a few extra harmonic components thrown in.
At 5:05 a.m. in walked the next Ramen customer—a Japanese
lady with knee high leather boots who sat next to me waiting on her order. She was a chocolate consultant and had just flown in from
Columbia. Every time she flies
back into Japan, she told me, the first thing she needed to do was get some
Ramen. This is unusual because Ramen is considered more of a man’s meal in
Japan. She spoke English and helped
translate the cook’s response when I queried him on the contents of the broth. The secret to a Ramen noodle shop’s
success is in the formula behind their soup, a complex process behind a
deceptively simple look. Setagaya
uses seaweed, the nibushi variety of dried small fish (of higher quality than
another variant, sodabushi), fermented dried tuna, chicken and pig bones. The Ramen at Setagaya in
Haneda airport, was one of the best that I have had in a while. Perhaps it was the early morning and the yearning
for a bowl of Ramen after 36 hours in Japan. The Ramen at San Francisco airport (near the gates where AA
flights leave) has been one of the worst that I have had.
