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Well, have you had great noodles? A crash course on Japanese culture: kodawari. It's a singular, artisanal obsession with making a single thing perfect. In Jap

Well, have you had great noodles? A crash course on Japanese culture: kodawari. It's a singular, artisanal obsession with making a single thing perfect. In Japan, there are restaurants dedicated to making only one thing, only yakitori or tempura or soba or a myriad other things or, of course, ramen. With such dedication, you elevate such trivial things, even such an extremely unremarkable thing like ramen, into a high art, and you expose it as what is is, a world full of subtleties. Yes, there are people just doing business, but by and large the field is advanced by people who care, and there is no top on this. SF has one, maybe two ramen-ya that even remotely come close. You exhaustively experiment, hacker-like, with the parameters of every possible thing you care about, the ratios of the bones and aromatics and fushi and fat that go into broth, the proportions of seasonings that go into the tare sauce that has had entire books written about them, the alkalinity and hydration and timing of the noodles, the little details and seasoning on top of the toppings. It is precisely through the person-centuries of experimentation that we find interesting combinations that we realized we could do interesting things in this thing that was basically just a bowl of pork soup with some soy sauce and some springy noodles. All this, and it's still just ten bucks a bowl. As far as I know, no other culture even comes remotely close to this kind of kodawari on such a large scale. It feels ridiculously dismissive to just ignore the achievements of an entire culture like that. (And for the record, it's not like I think there isn't any overrated ramen. I waited collectively something like two hours for the Michelin-starred Tsuta, and on net it impressed me less than some much more humble ramen-ya. All I'm saying is that the search space is both wide and deep, and it feels weird to just dismiss it like that.)

moate 8y ago
Counterpoint: there is no objectively perfect opinion (except this one :D). When it comes to anything, there will always be people who care at 100%, and people who care at 0%, and when it comes to art or cuisine or web design best practices there's going to be disagreements on it. And that's fine. It's not dismissive in a morally bad way. It's just food (full disclosure: I was a chef for over 10 years, I have a LOT of opinions on anything related to it). Some guy on the internet saying that the greatest ramen in the world isn't a substantial improvement over the most average ramen in the world doesn't ruin anything. It's just like, your opinion man.
- elvinyung 8y ago
  That's fair; I think I'm slightly more-pissed-than-usual about this just because it's very easy to dismissive of ramen, especially in North America, because all people remember are those deep-fried dehydrated brick fixtures of every college dorm. It is precisely that it doesn't look like traditional fine dining, or even New American cuisine, that I think a lot of people think it's nothing worth looking at. It's really, really easy to say "this is what it is to me, how could you ever do anything interesting with it?" I just kind of wish more people (including me) would try more things, you know? :P (I guess I'm channeling my inner David Chang right now.)
  - moate 8y ago
    Oh GOD, you want to get me pissed bring up that cry baby Chang. I could rant. But I won't. Listen, I get it. I spend 8 hours every few months boiling off a massive pot of bones and feet to make my own ramen broth to store in my freezer. I get that it's easy to dismiss it soup and noodles as just "some soup and noodles". Food is usually about what you know and are familiar with. It's about comfort for most people, but other people are about finding novel or interesting experiences.
    - jungler 8y ago
      There's definitely an element of performativity in food that strikes me every time I see cooking shows. It can be great food, but you're going to poop it out the same as anything else. So what are you paying for, when you get above a minimum bar of nutrition, sanitation, and taste? An experience. Fashion. Hospitality. With high end ingredients and techniques, scarcity. And I can see the appeal of chasing after "the best" on both ends. Something that is not just a great experience once, but great on every plate, every service. It's not unlike other aesthetic and cultural pursuits in that at the higher end it becomes about the coloration that you prefer, and most objective measures fall apart. But then most people aren't even able to describe what they want aesthetically, so a ranking substitutes. And when it's a ranking of something familiar and popular like burgers or noodle soups, it's simultaneously more interesting(more people have comparable experiences) and easier to dismiss(there are many great options). Earlier this year I visited Tokyo and decided to find "the best burger" (according to some guide) and the place I ultimately visited was, indeed, quite good by any standard, and it wasn't busy or unusually expensive, even. Was it the best? I have absolutely no idea. But I get to tell a story about visiting "the best" regardless.
wallflower 8y ago
Thanks for bringing up _kodawari_. I assume you have seen Tampopo. In case you have not and for others, it is a VHS-era film comedy about two truck drivers who help a struggling roadside chef learn how to really make noodles. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampopo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampopo
nradov 8y ago
I'm not dismissive of Japanese culture, I'm dismissive of hipsters.
- elvinyung 8y ago
  I just hope you understand that you're not just doing that. > Even great noodles aren't much better than average noodles. I really can't understand it. I have no reason to be mad at this, I have literally no reason to be emotionally connected to this, but... it still disappoints me a little bit on the inside to read this.

moate 8y ago

Counterpoint: there is no objectively perfect opinion (except this one :D). When it comes to anything, there will always be people who care at 100%, and people who care at 0%, and when it comes to art or cuisine or web design best practices there's going to be disagreements on it. And that's fine. It's not dismissive in a morally bad way. It's just food (full disclosure: I was a chef for over 10 years, I have a LOT of opinions on anything related to it). Some guy on the internet saying that the greatest ramen in the world isn't a substantial improvement over the most average ramen in the world doesn't ruin anything. It's just like, your opinion man.

elvinyung 8y ago
That's fair; I think I'm slightly more-pissed-than-usual about this just because it's very easy to dismissive of ramen, especially in North America, because all people remember are those deep-fried dehydrated brick fixtures of every college dorm. It is precisely that it doesn't look like traditional fine dining, or even New American cuisine, that I think a lot of people think it's nothing worth looking at. It's really, really easy to say "this is what it is to me, how could you ever do anything interesting with it?" I just kind of wish more people (including me) would try more things, you know? :P (I guess I'm channeling my inner David Chang right now.)
- moate 8y ago
  Oh GOD, you want to get me pissed bring up that cry baby Chang. I could rant. But I won't. Listen, I get it. I spend 8 hours every few months boiling off a massive pot of bones and feet to make my own ramen broth to store in my freezer. I get that it's easy to dismiss it soup and noodles as just "some soup and noodles". Food is usually about what you know and are familiar with. It's about comfort for most people, but other people are about finding novel or interesting experiences.
  - jungler 8y ago
    There's definitely an element of performativity in food that strikes me every time I see cooking shows. It can be great food, but you're going to poop it out the same as anything else. So what are you paying for, when you get above a minimum bar of nutrition, sanitation, and taste? An experience. Fashion. Hospitality. With high end ingredients and techniques, scarcity. And I can see the appeal of chasing after "the best" on both ends. Something that is not just a great experience once, but great on every plate, every service. It's not unlike other aesthetic and cultural pursuits in that at the higher end it becomes about the coloration that you prefer, and most objective measures fall apart. But then most people aren't even able to describe what they want aesthetically, so a ranking substitutes. And when it's a ranking of something familiar and popular like burgers or noodle soups, it's simultaneously more interesting(more people have comparable experiences) and easier to dismiss(there are many great options). Earlier this year I visited Tokyo and decided to find "the best burger" (according to some guide) and the place I ultimately visited was, indeed, quite good by any standard, and it wasn't busy or unusually expensive, even. Was it the best? I have absolutely no idea. But I get to tell a story about visiting "the best" regardless.

wallflower 8y ago

Thanks for bringing up _kodawari_. I assume you have seen Tampopo. In case you have not and for others, it is a VHS-era film comedy about two truck drivers who help a struggling roadside chef learn how to really make noodles. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampopo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampopo

nradov 8y ago

I'm not dismissive of Japanese culture, I'm dismissive of hipsters.

elvinyung 8y ago
I just hope you understand that you're not just doing that. > Even great noodles aren't much better than average noodles. I really can't understand it. I have no reason to be mad at this, I have literally no reason to be emotionally connected to this, but... it still disappoints me a little bit on the inside to read this.