Bullshit. One of the best restaurants I’ve ever eaten at is an Italian restaurant in Tokyo. You’ll pay about $100 per person (not including wine) and be happy about it because it’s so damn good.
There are tons of places to get Italian food and Italian restaurants here make Italian Italian food; i.e. Italian style, not strongly adapted to local tastes. The “Italian” cooking I grew up with in the US is mostly crap in comparison.
You can’t get good ramen in the US because it’s not easy to make it properly, and it’s not a prestige food. It’s also Chinese food via Japan, so doesn’t fit into an ethnic cuisine slot nice and neatly. The final nail in the coffin is that it’s "just noodles, " so many Americans wouldn’t go for it. They’d be complaining about not having enough meat.
Instant ramen is to proper ramen as a burger in a can is to an In-N-Out Double-Double. There’s no comparison. They’re not in the same league. Hell, they’re not even really in the same stadium. The instant ramen is a drunk spectator throwing up into the bushes on the outskirts of the overflow parking lot outside the stadium where they’re holding a league game.
I think the main reason is that the Japanese are not a very widespread recent immigrant group, except in certain cities where ramen may also be found. And actually, I believe most of the ramen you can find in NYC is actually purveyed by Koreans.
There is very little new immigration from Japan to the US. It’s been basically insignificant for roughly the past 60 years. By contrast between 1980 and 2006, the number of Vietnamese immigrants grew from several hundred thousand to over 1.5 million, in the US.
New immigrants like to open restaurants. Pho is a dish which contains nothing inherently disgusting to Americans, and what they do find gross (ie, beef tendon) can easily be left out. Nor is there any negative association towards Pho, while “ramen” is associated with being the cheapest, crappiest, trashiest, most unhealthy sustanence a broke-ass person can buy. The idea of eating ramen voluntarily is anathema to Americans.
Is Wagamama really that expensive at the US locations?
$11 for chicken ramen or $13.75 for beef ramen?
That’s getting kind of steep for a quick bowl for lunch.
I wish we had one nearby. I’d love to try some high quality ramen. I’ve seen reviews of ramen restaurants online in other areas and they look very good.
Another point: Sushi is wildly popular. So when someone thinks of starting a Japanese restaurant, they go for what’s shown success, teriyaki or sushi. Ramen would be a bigger risk, since it isn’t established.
I don’t eat out much lately, but I could get ramen if I wanted it. Pho and teriyaki are everywhere, but ramen is available here in Seattle.
It’s a very generous bowl of food, and the US prices are significantly better than they are in the UK. The Chili Ramen with chicken is 9.25GBP, which is almost US$15. Beef is 12.35GBP which is almost US$20.
There are many authentic Italian restaurants in Asia that are run by or invited Italian cooks from Italy and training locals… meaning you can find excellent Italian restaurants in Asia. Italians know where to go to open up their restaurants. Authentic Italian cuisine is a big boom in Asia currently… particularly the Far East… in a sense there are many similarities between Italian food and Asian food.
I know it’s hard to remember that Hawaii is part of the United States, but owing to a significant Asian influence, ramen stands are a staple of the culture. I gotta say, I dearly miss my stops at Hamura’s whenever I had to make the trip into town. Order yakitori with it and follow up with a slice of lilikoi chiffon pie. Heaven.
I disagree that Wagamama is overpriced, and Wagamama and the stalls at Porter Exchange fill two completely different roles for me. Thanks anyway though.
There is no soup on earth I would pay twenty US dollars per bowl for. That’s crazy! Especially not “quick lunch” soup which ramen is! I’d feel the same way about $20 pasta e fagioli soup. You must be high if you think I’m paying $20 for it, unless it comes with white-tablecloth service.
I’m going with larger ethnic population. An area with a significant population of Japanese descent is going to naturally have a larger number and wider variety of Japanese restaurants than an area where that population is smaller. For various reasons, the West Coast and some of the larger East Coast cities are your areas of larger Japanese population, so that’s where you find you more unusual Japanese restaurants.
I’d tend to agree with that. Pho, I think, grows out of Vietnamese neighborhoods where the locals were eating it and it slowly bled over into the non-Vietnamese community.
Most places don’t have “Japanese” neighborhoods populated by first and second generation immigrants, which I would think is a big part of a) having people to buy your food until the white population discovers it and b) providing a population of people who want to open small “common food” type restaurants.
My wife is Japanese and gets a craving every once in a while (though normally she does a pretty good job just improving instant raman at home) so we know where all the places in the East Bay are (plus Japantown in San Francisco) and I’m glad they aren’t more common since I’m not big on ramen (don’t like hot liquids in general).
My experience is that eating anything other than ramen at a ramen shop is like eating the chicken at a steakhouse, it may be on the menu but it isn’t going to be very good.
We madethis tonight.
We used chicken broth, celery root instead of canned bamboo, spinach instead of kelp, and of course I added garlic.
Outstanding!
Thanks, Govermentman.
I’m going with this. The reason Denver has them while many other larger cities don’t is because there was a WWII internment camp in Eastern Colorado, and many of the internees moved to Denver afterwards. They stayed in Colorado because the Governor at the time refused to accept the anti-Japanese sentiment of the time and welcomed the Japanese openly.
In the DC area, pho restaurants (Vietnamese-style noodle soup) are fairly common.
We lived within walking distance of a good Japanese-style noodle shop when I had an apartment in NYC, pho is a pretty good substitute when I get to jonesing for noodles and yummy broth.