There’s a noodle on my mind, soupy and wet. I can eat them everyday, once, twice, even thrice. Chinese noodle, that is—the ancient food invented by an unknown individual who existed 2,000 years ago, during the Han Dynasty.
You can’t go wrong with a cuisine that has evolved through 2,000 years. If anyone has truly mastered the culinary arts—fancy as the French may be—I’d have to place my bet on the Japanese, who have mastered the art not only of cooking but also of developing ingredients from their source, taking freshness and flavor to a different level.
After a Sunday afternoon at Tsutaya, one of Tokyo’s popular bookstores, my friend and I were about to part ways when he insisted I stop by at Ginza. Ginza on a Sunday is a must-see for any tourist because the roads are closed to transportation, turning the wide swath of concrete into a walking and picnic area for the residents of the city.
Perhaps the most peculiar meal I’ve had in recent memory was at Mitsuyado Sei-Men, a ramen restaurant on Jupiter Street in Makati.
I’ve driven alone as far as Mindoro and back, sleeping in the car aboard a boat that also had a truck of noisy pigs screeching for their lives beside me. So I understand how, like the drivers in the avant-garde Japanese foodie movie “Tampopo,” you can be so tired and hungry that you can consume an entire bowl of ramen.
This week I did something that I usually try very hard not to do: I went to a restaurant not because it was new and promised to be interesting, but because it was new and popular.
Japanese food has become part of our culinary landscape, and I love it.
In a ramen shop in the Ginza district of Tokyo, everyone is silent at noon. Save for the raucous welcome greeting as new customers enter the door, guests sit quietly, focused on their ramen.
There is an unmistakable attraction to a full bowl of Japanese noodles accompanied by vegetables and other trimmings. But in the comic book “Noodle Boy Chapter 1: Love at First Taste,” the ramen represents much more than physical nourishment.
The ramen craze has hit our country. And just like with lechon manok, Zagu and inasal before it, many places will bid goodbye to the food business, while a few others will experience box-office lines—and battles with the BIR.
