4 signs a ramen shop might not be great before you enter it (in America)

Good and great ramen isn’t difficult to find in Japan. So, how come most ramen I come across in America don’t hit the same spot? I have no expertise in explaining the history behind how ramen was brought to the United States and how its cultural dominance exploded (think instant ramen and college students, or saimin). What I can say are a few tricks that I’ve uncovered in determining if a ramen shop may not be so great, even before you ever enter it and order food. To preface, this is based off my experience eating ramen in NYC, Boston, and LA. These tricks may not apply to places that exist outside of these three cities, but I hope it helps the reader get a better sense of what good ramen is like.

0. (optional context:) American and Japanese customers are different

All restaurant must make sacrifices, and food is no exception. If you’re a Chinese restaurant in the middle of American-suburbia and you’re open in a little joint of a strip mall, chances are, the best way your business will thrive is if you serve Chinese-American takeout that provides delivery. Your store doesn’t have enough square feet to sit a banquet hall’s worth of people, and neither do you have the manpower / talent to do such. What you may have are 3-5 woks and one-two chainsmokers to develop hundreds of orders, especially during lunch time and weekends. You’re also not serving Hongkongers, but potentially proud Italian-Americans. So don’t go serving macaroni soup with ham and don’t be mixing coffee and tea (yuenyeung).

In this sense, restaurants must know who their clientele is and they must cater what they make for such. Hence, the ramen one finds in America will inherently be different from the ones in Japan. Japan is an island country with a rich history of eating tons of fish, so serving seafood broths is a no-brainer. America is a republic with tons of people stemming from various backgrounds, so having a variety of options may enable any customer to find what they’d like. The Japanese don’t find slurping noodles obnoxious. Most Americans do, but the few who tolerate it at ramen shops seem to think it’s a sign of appreciation (maybe historically it was true, but it just seems like a lie; no one that I know slurps noodles for any reason besides efficiency). The small area in Japanese ramen shops don’t allow for much communication or relaxation; it’s just a place to quickly get food and leave. Restaurants in America, on the other hand, tend to enforce communication (e.g. restaurants tend to earn the most money through alcoholic beverages) and not quick customer turnover.

So, from just a business standpoint alone, ramen is inherently different in America and Japan. In addition to business reasons, there exist various other confounders that cause the difference in ramen, and it’s important to point out such. The remainder of this post does not take into account any of these factors; it only talks about common trends found within not-so-great ramen.

1. They put corn in all their dishes.

Corn is not a staple in shoyu nor tonkotsu ramen. Corn is only a potential topping for miso ramen, and that’s usually only alongside butter. Butter and miso are high in umami, and eating that alongside corn, one experiences a wonderfully sweet and flavorful combination that extends cultural barriers (e.g. elote is similar where it has corn with butter, cheese, etc.). You don’t get the same feeling when adding corn to other ramen, hence you just don’t add corn but instead opt for other toppings.

I believe ramen shops in the states that add corn in all of its ramen dishes do know this. The thing is, if they only serve corn in their miso ramen, they’ll end up with a bunch of waste (given that miso is probably less popular). So, they just add corn to every type of ramen they serve instead, which ends up negatively influencing the bowl.

2. They serve twenty types of ramen.

It’s not a sin to serve twenty types of ramen; many good shops in Japan do as well. The difference is that these shops sell twenty types of ramen that are all very similar. For example, a store that I find nice sells both tonkotsu and tsukemen. The reason this works is because their tsukemen basically uses the exact same tonkotsu broth, and both bowls can benefit from having thick noodles. In essense, that shop serves the same dish prepped in different ways.

The problem with these types of shops in the states is that they just aren’t good enough. They also share the same principle of using the same ingredients in different bowls, but that doesn’t account for the fact that they aren’t appropriate. Like previously mentioned, they might add corn to everything, which just doesn’t work. Additionally, they might use the same noodles across different bowls, but classic bowls of shoyu/tonkotsu/miso don’t benefit from having the same type of noodle. In essence, the varieties of ramen they serve aren’t inherently related or close. They seem to be randomly picked because they are the most popular. Lastly, American shops do add some speciality bowls here and there, but they honestly tend to fall short somehow. I think the problem is that these shops tend to stretch too wide in their options, and it causes each bowl to suffer in quality.

3. The chashu looks shriveled.

Ramen tends to have some chashu component, whether it be pork chashu in shoyu or chicken chashu in tori-paitan (perhaps there are vegetarian options too, but I’ve yet to have any in Japan and the ones in America are lackluster). These slices of meat are juicy and tender, adding a nice meatyness to dishes. Decent chashu is pretty easy to make: all you practically do is boil and marinate meat. But I think many stores hop on some trend to then blow-torch the chashu, and problem is, they torch it too far. The once-juicy meat tends to get cooked too much and at that point it’s gotten somewhat burnt, dry, and tough to chew.

4. They also serve sushi (and other Japanese dishes).

Generally, it feels weird to me that a ramen shop would ever serve sushi. In American terms, it’s like if a Tex-Mex place also serves Cajun jambalaya.Tex-Mex and Cajun cuisine have rich, independent histories. Similarly, sushi is a traditional Japanese food while ramen is a Japanese-Chinese invention. It would make no sense to put these two together just because they’re Japanese, similar to how it doesn’t make sense to mix a Tex-Mex and Cajun store just because they’re both American. If they also serve other Japanese dishes like katsu or curry, chances are they aren’t great (although perhaps Menya Tigre in Sawtelle is the exception; I’ve never been but it looks decent and I’ve heard good things).

Miscellaneous

This is about it for the things I’ve noticed in ramen places that I didn’t find too enjoyable. On another note, I’ve found that all the udon stores I didn’t like in America use that one long wooden soup ladle, so there might be a similar trick that exists with the cutlery/utensils used at ramen shops. Anyway, I hope these tricks may help the reader find better tasting ramen in America, and perhaps they can learn to appreciate ramen more. I’m not particularly fighting for authenticity or traditionality or whatever, I just want good tasting ramen, and I find that these tricks I’ve laid out help in identifying shops that fall short in serving such.