RAMEN

To call ramen the national dish of Japan would, on one hand, be perfectly valid. But on the other hand, it’s kind of cheating, because ramen isn’t really just one dish — it’s more of an umbrella term for hundreds, if not thousands, of dishes, albeit ones that share a common genealogy and key characteristics. It’s better to think of ‘ramen’ as a term like ‘pasta’ — yes, there are obvious and important connections between the various pasta dishes, but that doesn’t mean lasagne al forno and tortellini in brodo are the same thing. Similarly, a clear yuzu-scallop shio ramen is very different from a rich and spicy tan tan men.

With its many stylistic and regional variations, ramen encompasses a huge range of flavours, textures and styles. Like many Japanese art forms, it can be beautifully restrained and minimalistic, but it can also be aggressive: a gut-punch of animal fat and salt. There’s no version that might be described as ‘the’ ramen — no platonic ideal of the dish. Quite the contrary — to truly understand ramen, you have to embrace its