More than sushi, okonomiyaki, or any other recognizably Japanese food, ramen is arguably the most popular food in Japan. It’s inexpensive, you can find it virtually anywhere in Japan, and everybody seems to have their own take on it. As you might have guessed from my Ramen Survival Guide, between all of the different broths, [...]
When’s the last time you walked away from a movie hungry? It’s pretty rare for me. American movies about food seem to be few and far between, and the ones that are around are usually socially-conscious documentaries that bum me out more than anything. Japanese movies about food seem to do exactly the opposite. Most [...]
B-Class Gourmet (or B-kyu) is the Japanese term for someone who just can’t get enough good, cheap, Japanese food. Their appreciation for cheap eats knows no bounds. They’re the people who are willing to stand in long lines or travel far and wide for that perfect bowl of ramen. They’re a nifty bunch of people, [...]
It’s hard to overstate instant ramen’s importance in Japan. There are multiple instant ramen museums in the country, and at the beginning of the millenium, the Japanese voted instant ramen Japan’s most important invention of the 20th century. Of course, no product in Japan is without goofy advertising campaigns. Some of my favorite commercials (CMs) [...]
There’s no Japanese food I’m more obsessed with than ramen. It’s cheap, delicious, and has enough variations to keep me interested and coming back for more. Even though ramen is originally from China and was once called shina soba (しなそば), over the course of about 150 years ramen has slowly but surely become a uniquely [...]
Japan loves its food. It also loves its food movies. No matter where you go in Japan, you’ll always run into local dishes, special sweets, and famous restaurants and chefs. It really is a food obsessed nation. So obsessed, I’ve found, that there are a plethora of food museums and theme parks scattered around Japan [...]
In this edition of Tofugu’s weekly Saturday Timewaster, I’d like to regale to you a story about a man who’s videotaped the creation of one-thousand four-hundred fifty-two bowls of instant ramen and instant yakisoba. How he’s done the… wait… wait…… seriously? ONE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED FIFTY TWO? Obviously the feat of strength here isn’t the [...]
