Ramen Hunting in the Year of Corona...

Ramen Beast: Newsletter 1

As 2020 winds down, Ramen Beast is taking stock of how the Japanese ramen world has been affected by COVID-19, and we’re looking back on what became a surprisingly epic year of ramen eating.

Ramen Beast’s Abram Plaut has eaten at more ramen shops than days in the year (397 bowls in 2020 and counting, as of mid December), and he has some highlights to share — including a ramen eating journey to Japan’s northern volcanic island of Rishiri, on the border with Russia.

But first…

➤Does Michelin Know Ramen??

Michelin’s 2021 Guides to Japan released on Dec. 8, with Tokyo retaining its crown as the city with the most Michelin stars in the world. Foodies have always debated just how well the French culinary authority understands Japan’s vast and culturally unique restaurant landscape — and that’s especially true for ramen. Two ramen shops received Michelin stars this year, and 32 more scored Bib Gourmand honors. The Ramen Beast team recently sat down to recap the selection and discuss whether Michelin really knows what it’s talking about when it comes to Japan’s ramen scene (Hint: Not really… and here’s why).

BTW, this is Ramen Beast’s first monthly newsletter. If you like what you see, please subscribe or share us with your food-loving friends.

➤Ramen Master Interviews
This month, we also interviewed two ramen chefs — each for very different reasons. 

Kouki Kokubun (above), master of Anaya in western Tokyo, is a very ordinary Japanese ramen chef. He's not elevating ramen to new extremes of refinement, or implementing cutting-edge cooking techniques. And that's exactly why we wanted to talk to him.

Although the innovators tend to get the acclaim, chefs like Kokubun are the foot soldiers who sustain Japan's ramen scene. At Anaya, he works over 100 hours each week and handles every aspect of the shop solo, from sourcing ingredients, crafting the soup and making all of the noodles by hand to cleaning, customer service and accounting. His ramen is considered just slightly above average by Tokyo standards, but local standards are insanely high: If you were to drop Kokubun's shop into New York City, it would instantly be considered one of the very best ramen shops in the United States. Rest assured, he has a steady stream of regulars who patronize his small outpost both day and night.

We sat down with him to chat about the daily grind of a Tokyo ramen master. The interview.

Kouya Nagahama (above), the young creator of Tsukemen Michi in Kameari is a very different breed of ramen master. Included in the most esteemed foodie guides, his shop is all about refinement — and it’s rated especially high among Tokyo’s most elite tsukemen shops. Through innovations in both preparation and presentation, he brings a heavy dose of Omotenashi, or Japanese hospitality, into the ramen shop experience. His tonkotsu gyokai soup is deep with umami but sweet and drinkable, and it comes paired with rope-thick dipping noodles and an array of elegant toppings that are presented almost kaiseki style. Something of a phenom, Nagahama-san launched Michi when he was just 23 years old. We dropped in to ask him how he invented his rarified approach to tsukemen. Watch the video.

➤How has COVID-19 impacted the Japanese ramen world? 

With much of the world moving through various waves of COVID-19 infection this year, if you’re outside Japan, you might be wondering whether ramen shops in the country are even open at all.

The answer is yes. The pandemic continues to weigh on the Japanese ramen scene, but not nearly as heavily as on restaurateurs throughout the West. 

Early mask wearing, hand washing and collective vigilance among the Japanese public have been credited with Japan's relative success in suppressing the coronavirus. At present, Japan is experiencing a worrying uptick of infection rates, as winter sets in and life moves mostly indoors. But national infection totals are a fraction of what’s happening in the U.S. and much of Europe. Aside from some social distancing requirements and ubiquitous masks, the texture of daily life in Japan still remains fairly normal.  

The pandemic has been a mixed bag for the ramen scene. Many chefs say sales are down about 10 percent to 30 percent for the year, due to a brief lockdown in April and May. Inbound tourism to Japan has ground to a total halt, too, of course, a stark contrast from the past five years when the country consistently set new records for the number of foreign visitors. In 2019, Japan welcomed 31.8 million tourists, the highest number since the country began keeping track in the 1960s. Currently, the only people coming in are returning residents and a small number of specially approved business travelers from neighboring countries where infection rates are low.  

➤How is the pandemic affecting local ramen heads?

For hardcore ramen heads inside Japan, the sudden absence of all foreign travelers has created something of a rare opportunity. Many of Japan's most famous ramen shops, which boasted hours-long lines prior to the pandemic, are suddenly much more accessible. Ramen heads we’ve spoken to have echoed the observation that it’s much quicker and easier to get into famous shops. And since the government is still encouraging the public to support local restaurants, provided they wear masks at all times except when eating, many also feel obliged to continue ramen hunting.

Abram, Ramen Beast's ramen-head-in-chief, offers this recap of his year of eating to date:  

"Since I started keeping track in 2012, I’ve eaten at around 200 to 300 different ramen shops every year. The Japanese ramen hunt is a mission that lasts a lifetime. The most important factor in how much ramen I eat is simply how much time I spend in Japan. Prior to 2020, my peak eating year was 2019, when I crushed 302 bowls, each at a different shop.

In 2020, I’ve been stuck in Japan with all overseas travel on hold. Luckily, most ramen shops have been operating as usual for most of the year. Hotels are dirt cheap almost everywhere because there are no tourists, and thanks to Star Alliance I can fly almost anywhere in the country on ANA for just 5k-6k United miles. As of mid-December, I’ve eaten at 396 shops and counting. Already at a yearly P.R., my ultimate goal of 400 is within sight.

The time commitment spent traveling — often solo — can be grueling. As I’ve eaten at more and more shops over the years, I’ve had to go further and further afield to find new places I’ve never visited before (new shops also open constantly in Tokyo, which helps). I’ve also been working hard to expand my knowledge of Japan’s many traditional regional styles of ramen, some of which can only be found in very remote areas of the country (all of this intel eventually makes its way into the Ramen Beast database)  — but it's always worth it when you discover a new gem. 

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➤Abram’s 2020 of ramen eating “The excursions below all involved either a flight or a bullet train ride. Only the very first trip was before the pandemic and outside Japan. Aside from these travels, I’ve been eating ramen in Tokyo and its surrounding suburbs pretty much constantly.”

January
Hong Kong - 2 shops
Kanazawa, Ishikawa - 3 shops
Toyama - 4 shops

February
Kumamoto - 8 shops

March
Osaka - 3 shops
Kyoto - 6 shops

April
Kagoshima - 8 shops
Miyazaki - 4 shops
Fukuoka - 6 shops
Saga - 2 shops

May
Toyama - 2 shops
Kanazawa, Ishikawa - 4 shops
Hiroshima - 6 shops

June 
Onomichi, Fukuyama, Kasaoka - 4 shops
Shizuoka - 2 shops
Nagoya - 1 shop
Kobe - 4 shops
Kyoto - 4 shops
Nara - 2 shops

July 
Okayama - 5 shops
Kasaoka - 2 shops
Sapporo - 2 shops
Rishiri Island - 2 shops
Takasaki, Gunma - 2 shops
Sendai - 2 shops

August
Osaka - 4 shops
Kyoto - 3 shops
Nara - 2 shops
Kobe - 1 shop

September 
Okinawa - 6 shops
Fukuoka - 10 shops
Saga - 2 shops
Nagoya, Gifu, Aichi - 5 shops
Kanagawa - 1 shop
Chiba - 1 shop

October
Aomori - 9 shops
Osaka - 8 shops
Kyoto - 1 shop
Chiba - 2
Tottori - 4 shops
Shimane - 1 shop

November
Niigata - 2 shops
Fukushima - 3 shops
Fukuoka - 6 shops
Kanagawa - 4 shops
Fukushima - 3 shops
Chiba - 2 shops
Niigata - 2 shops
Saitama - 2 shops

December
Kanagawa - 6 shops
Saitama - 2
Chiba - 1

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➤Some highlights

Obviously, all of this adds to some relentless, quite diverse ramen eating. It’s taken me to some parts of Japan that I might not have otherwise visited, which has always been one of my favorite aspects of the ramen hunting life. Here’s one example:

Rishiri

Rishiri is a small volcanic island located off the far northern tip of Hokkaido — so remote that on clear days you can see Russia’s Sakhalin Island from a lookout point on Mt. Rishiri. As many people know, the kombu (sea kelp) from this area of Japan is world famous and considered a prized and premium product. There also is one master-run ramen shop on the island that pretty much everyone seems to know, 'Rishiri Ramen Miraku.' It’s arguably the most remote ramen shop in all of Japan. I’d been wanting to check it out for years, and since this area of Japan is freezing cold and blanketed in deep snow most of the year, July seemed like the perfect month to visit — with direct flights to Rishiri from Chitose Airport in Sapporo. 

[For more about Rishiri, check out our friends’ substack about the whisky distillery — Kamui Whisky — they are launching on the island]

My friend Brian, aka Ramen Adventures, and I decided to make the trip together, with a short, one-night layover in Sapporo. Fate was with us that one night too, as after crushing ramen with a mountain of negi at a shop called Kiraito we randomly ran into our friend J.J., co-founder of “Ramen Shop,” the popular ramen spot in Oakland, California. It turned out that J.J. had moved to Sapporo earlier in the year, and he was now the owner of a buttermilk fried chicken shop called “Baby J’s,” which he runs with his wife. After sharing laughs over a few bottles of natural wine, he unlocked his restaurant and made fried chicken sandos for us at 2:30am. Really epic night.

The following day we hopped on our ANA flight from Sapporo to RIS, and arrived right at the scheduled touch-down time of 1:20pm. Rishiri’s landscape is stunning. The island is formed by a single conical volcano, which rises out of the sea like a small Mt Fuji dropped into the remote north Pacific. Often swathed in clouds, it looks like a Bond Villain’s lair, basically. But we didn’t have much time to take things in... The famous Rishiri Ramen Miraku shop is only open for lunch, 11:30am-2pm, so we took a taxi straight there from the airport. 

We made it to the shop with just a few minutes to spare and luckily the OG master, Esashika-san, was still in the kitchen. Brian happened to have met Esashika-san several years ago at the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum, when Rishiri Ramen Miraku was opening their ramen stand there (The ramen museum documents ramen styles from all over Japan, and Esashika-san was invited to open a temporary shop to introduce his Rishiri variety of ramen). Esashika-san actually remembered meeting Brian and he greeted us with the warmth and friendliness that rural parts of Japan are famous for. 

The main bowl Esashika-san serves is a kogashi-shoyu ramen, basically soy sauce-flavored soup fried up in a wok. The reason this shop is famous is for its heavy use of the local Rishiri kombu. There are two soups combined, one made from various animal bones and the other a kombu dashi. Needless to say, the ramen was delicious, but what happened after lunch turned out to be even better. 

Master Esashika-san asked how we planned on returning to our hotel, and when we said we hadn't figured that out yet, he offered to give us a ride. First he had to clean up the shop for a few minutes, so he sent us with his son to the family's newly opened soup curry restaurant, located just a block away. They also serve ice cream, and we got to gorge ourselves on samples of both curry and almost every kind of ice cream on the menu while we waited for Esashika-san. Once he swooped us in his van, he asked what we wanted to do on Rishiri. Not really knowing much other than the kelp business, we mentioned the kombu, and before we knew it we were getting a private tour of the kelp harvesting and drying process by the man himself! Rishiri Kombu is only harvested for about eight weeks during the summertime, when it's warm enough to sun dry the kelp for several hours on the same day of harvesting. When it's too rainy, windy or cold, there's no harvest. The weather was stellar this fine afternoon, and as we pulled up to a large plot of rocky ground just off the main road we could see 10-20 workers tending to long, slippery tangles of kelp leaves drying on the ground. 

We then cruised over to a storage room, where the kelp is kept in bundles until it’s ready for sale and transport. The old storage building had a farmhouse feel to it, with a rich, earthy aroma. Layers of aroma — oceanic but richly plantlike — almost too wild to describe. Lush, dank, deep ocean vibes. Stacks upon stacks of dried kombu. We talked to the one worker inside who showed us some samples and talked about the different grades of kelp. Basically, the larger and more pristine the piece of leaf, the higher the price you can sell it for. There are multiple grades, but one thing locals agreed on was that they pretty much all taste the same! Average price they get paid for one kelp frond? Around 500 yen. Down in Tokyo, it then retails for many thousands. Esashika-san then took us to some of Rishiri's most famous spots — lookout points, fishing villages, waterfalls — for a few more hours, basically giving us a VIP tour of the island. 

The next day we took the ferry 45 minutes to another nearby island, Rebun. Rebun is famously Japan’s northernmost island. It’s also known for the ultra-high-quality kombu and uni harvested off its icy cold pristine shores. Here we splurged for one night at the nicest hotel on the island, complete with an omakase dinner course of various local dishes and plenty of local uni. We met a local kombu fisherman who supplies a ramen shop in west Tokyo on our last day, but the weather was too windy to go out harvesting with him, so instead we went to lunch and feasted on a local specialty— Hokke Chan Chan Yaki, basically charcoal grilled fresh atka mackerel with miso. Insanely good.

We also went for a long hike along the upper ridge of the island and got caught in a full-on downpour, but that's another story. Finally, we cruised back to Rishiri for one final bowl of ramen before our flights back south. We hit up Tsuki Cafe, a small restaurant on the second floor of the Rishiri ferry terminal building. Run by master Ogata-san, who previously produced a Hokkaido-themed restaurant in New York City, it exceeded our expectations. Ogata-san offers a few different varieties of ramen, most with a base of tonkotsu soup and some tare options like spicy miso. Not bad at all, and particularly nice after a day out on the islands. 

Ramen Beast will be back in January with a new edition of the newsletter. Happy Holidays and best wishes for a healthy and happy 2021 (Hopefully with some safe travel & ramen eating in Japan too!).