Rah Rah, Ramen

The slurpy, savoury story of a Japanese sensation

- Leila El Shennawy

YOU MAY THINK of ramen as college kid cuisine, but dressier versions of this noodles-and-broth dish, with toppings such as roast pork, fish cakes, bamboo shoots and poached eggs, blow the instant kind out of its bowl.

Chinese immigrants first brought the wheat noodle recipe to Japan, according to historian and ramen expert George Solt. In his book, The Untold History of Ramen, he tells of a scholar from China during the 17th century who instructed the Japanese feudal lord he worked for to add pork and vegetables to his noodle soup.

By 1910, the first ramen restaurant in Japan, Rai Rai Ken, was serving the dish to Tokyo diners. It was called shina soba in Japanese (shina is an archaic Japanese word for 'China, while soba are thin buckwheat noodles). But the Japanese pronunciation of lamian, the Chinese word for the soft wheat noodles, evolved into today's 'ramen!