This week is all about Abura Soba, aka Maze Soba, aka Shirunashi. A soupless ramen known by many names, this is a somewhat fuzzy category. But it’s also an increasingly exciting ramen genre, due to the way it seems to be rapidly following the tried and true trajectory from lowly blue collar crowd-pleaser to widely adopted hotbed of culinary experimentation. First there was ramen, then there was tsukemen, and now — perhaps — there is Abura Soba? As you'll learn below, thanks both to the pandemic and recent innovations in craft noodle-making, Abura Soba is quickly becoming the third pillar that ambitious Japanese ramen chefs feel obliged to master.
Aburasoba, Taiwan mazesoba, Junk-style mazesoba, shirunashi tantanmen, I love them all.
They haven't replaced ramen completely in my ramen-eating repertoire but I pretty much never eat tsukemen anymore, I probably haven't had more than a handful of bowls over the past five or six years since I started eating the soupless stuff regularly. I wonder if that is true for any other people.
Aburasoba, Taiwan mazesoba, Junk-style mazesoba, shirunashi tantanmen, I love them all.
They haven't replaced ramen completely in my ramen-eating repertoire but I pretty much never eat tsukemen anymore, I probably haven't had more than a handful of bowls over the past five or six years since I started eating the soupless stuff regularly. I wonder if that is true for any other people.