When I was in elementary school in Thailand, on a typical Friday at 12am the lights were all turned off at home, and everyone was asleep. Everything was silent. But in the background, you could hear the singing sound of crickets, mosquitoes flying by, and the fan moving in a circular motion. I had the whole living room to myself, and that’s when the party had started.
I turned on the TV and switched it to Cartoon Network. The party wouldn’t be complete without some food, so I made myself a bowl of instant ramen noodle soup. I cracked an egg on top of the noodles, put the bowl in a microwave for 2 minutes, and that was it- my guilty pleasure. After eating this at midnight, my face would be all swollen the next morning due to having too much salt just before going to sleep, but I thought it was all worth it.
This type of instant ramen isn’t the same as Japanese ramen. The instant ramen noodles that I was crazy about in Thailand was called Mama. It comes in many flavors, and my favorite one is the tom yum. Each package is a portion for one. You can cook it with hot boiling water, in a microwave, or boil it in a pot.
After moving to the US, I was exposed to another type of ramen, the Japanese ramen. It’s a noodle soup dish, consisting of wheat noodles served in a meat based broth, often flavored with soy sauce or miso, and has toppings like sliced roasted pork, bamboo shoots, dried seaweed, and scallions. Nearly every region in Japan has its own variation of ramen.
One of my favorite types of Japanese ramen is shoyu ramen, so I went to Rai Rai Ken in East Village to learn the secret recipe for shoyu ramen from an old friend. “To create a good balanced bowl of ramen, it needs five elements: tare sauce, broth, fat, noodles, and toppings,” said Yo Katsuse, the manager of Rai Rai Ken. He is over 6 feet tall and could easily pass as a giant in the east. While teaching me how to make the shoyu ramen, he tilted his body down, with humble body moments and a bright smile on his face.
