What I write about when I write about ramen - Part 1.

Where do I start?

Do I write about my memories, or do I write about what I know? How about how I make my ramen? My influences? Or just interesting stories?

Once I started going through my mental notes I knew there’s no way I could make this easily digestible in one newsletter. So buckle up, we are going multiverse.

Let’s go back in time.

The year ramen changed

Pre-2014, Melbourne had Kokoro, Fukuryu, Little Ramen Bar, Ramenya in GPO, Momotaro in Richmond, Mugen near Flinders Lane, Ajisen. I remember walking all the way to Wabi-Sabi Fitzroy for their ramen weekend specials.

They offered all flavours of ramen, trying to please everyone who walked through the door.

Looking back, how did we let them degrade us like that? A bowl of random ingredients in a bowl with MSG for $15. $15 back then was probably $30 now adjusted to inflation. The eggs were even hard-boiled. Our ‘Mecca’ was Gumshara in Sydney, that’s how the low the bar was.

Not too dissimilar to ‘Japanese cafe’ nowadays, we just sat there, pretended to be posh to impress each other as the shop owners laughed to the bank, buying their houses with cash.

Ok, that’s kinda harsh, because, first of all, we had no choice.

Also, because the basic Melbourne person really didn’t know any better.

Ramen was an abstract concept to Melburnians before 2014.

Catalyst 1 - Jetstar

2014 was also the year Jetstar started flying to Japan. I’m saying $500 return to Kansai. Back then JAL, ANA, Qantas, the big guys, before Tokyo won the Olympics, had zero interest in the Melbourne-Japan route.

The LCC allowed Melburnian weebs the chance to fly and taste actual ramen. Good ones too. Ramen was no longer fictional. A point of reference was established. An average Joe from Geelong knows how shoyu ramen should taste like, the flavour profile of kelp and bonito flakes, how miso needs to be treated, how tonkotsu was white and gelatinous. We learned about bones and the long hours to make ramen broth.

Catalyst 2 - The Internet

Those who couldn’t travel, surfed the internet.

Travel shows, food blogs, they matured. That Jiro documentary came out in 2011, by then you had content creators just penetrating Japan and broadcasting their lives inside out. Books, magazines, the first (and best) issue of Lucky Peach is all about ramen, which kinda rescued Ivan Orkin back to America.

Finally, all those knowledge, translated into English, verified by white people with a green tick. I mean, that’s how Shop Ramen in Fitzroy came to be right? Some white kids went to Japan and tried to make their own.

It’s passable for hipsters, but not for purists.

The more we knew, the disparity grew.

We still had no choice, but we knew exactly what we were missing.

And then one night, a giant golden-red sign slowly rose up along Russell Street.

Catalyst 3 - Broadsheet

I was peeking from outside the window.
There’s something about the small space, polished wooden tables, maybe the smoke behind the kitchen, ‘Ramen Profesisonal’ written on the signboard. A TV was playing some interview of some ramen master with subtitles. Maybe it was because I just came back from Fukuoka, it just made me feel ‘nostalgic’.

I really wanted the place to be good, yet I did not want to wait to find out. I pushed through the door even though I was uninvited.

The guy said they’re not open to the public yet. VIP only.

“I’m a photographer with Broadsheet,” I said.

A penny dropped.

The guy said “ah, then I can put you on the VIP list. You can come back tomorrow.”

Broadsheet started as a site people went to look for coffee spots. Actually, it started as a … broadsheet, then it became a website. There’s that anti-authority vibe to it. Back then we had what, the Good Food Guide for rich white lawyers who used Telstra? Broadsheet was Optus with serif type and white space.

It just became a yellow page of ‘what white people want to do to look cool’. Its influence in 2014 was like the Michelin guide, minus the stuffiness. It made and broke business. Many begged to be featured, only to not able to handle the influx of business and suffered.

By then I’d only shot one or two places for Broadsheet, and usually, they assign you to a location; not the other way round.

As I walked out of the store, I emailed the editor offering to shoot AND write, bringing her the story.

Fortunately, she said yes.

I brought Chika with me the next evening, making the assignment into a date (one stone two birds, man). Also, she’s my shield right? The real Japanese from Fukuoka.

You had to pinch yourself.
To have the creamy pork bone broth, the Ichiran / Ippudo system, choosing the hardness of the noodles, whether you wanted spring onions, bamboo shoots with a ticket. Japanese phrases like ‘kaedama’ for extra noodles. The little condiment stations - garlic, takana, chili oil, extra ramen sauce, sesame seeds. The tall bowls. Giant pots in the kitchen. Gyoza skins from the noodle machine. The ramen champion himself in the kitchen to launch the opening.
It’s never been done before.

What sealed it was the authenticity and focus on pork bone broth - unapologetically thick with collagen. It wasn’t a Jack-of-all with miso, shoyu, shio offerings, just tonkotsu. It’s one broth. You can add chilli oil or black sesame, that’s all.

Vegetarians? Bad command or file name.

To write 200 words was an injustice. I threw in a line, reminding readers to wear heattech while queueing up.

And queue up they did. I wasn’t there, but let’s just say the photograph of the queue became the feature poster for their following restaurants. I was informed that 30% of their customer came from Broadsheet.

Likewise, Broadsheet had a crazy amount of clicks from that one listing. I was then asked to write a full feature article on ramen. They dictated which restaurants I had to write about (‘because their photos are nice!’) and made me sounded more PC than I actually was, but hey that’s what editors do. You want truth and objectivity? Go back to kindergarten.

Anyway, that, was how I became the ‘ramen guy’ for Broadsheet.

I’m not sure if you’ve heard of the son-in-law of Bill Gates story, but that’s basically what happened.

The Bill Gates in this story, is Hakata Gensuke.

Catalyst 4 - Hakata Gensuke

If you feel like this whole newsletter is a suck-up to Hakata Gensuke, saying they changed the Melbourne ramen scene, good job, you caught up.

It really did.

7 years later, none of the old shops survived - Kokoro disappeared overnight, Momotaro, Fukuryu, gone. Little Ramen Bar, Wabi Sabi and Mugen are still there, but only due to geographical reasons. Even the immortal Ajisen was driven out of Melbourne CBD. The only multi-flavour offering shop I know of is Mr Ramen San in Mid City Arcade.

After 5-6 branches in Sydney, Ippudo ‘suddenly’ realised there’s a market in Melbourne. They then brought us Gogyo from Kyoto. Another story I wrote for Broadsheet about Melbourne’s first 24-hour ramen (and tsukemen) reached 80k readers within 30 minutes. Supernormal’s on the bandwagon. Shizuku offered tantanmen as their signature in Richmond. Everyone started offering thicker, more flavourful broth. We had two new shops offering noodles along Queensberry street - Superling with Chinese hand-pulled noodles; Torissong with their yuzu ramen. And this is against the tide of Chinese malatang and spicy noodles. During COVID there was Gomiboys offering take-home kit, which kinda fizzled out.

All this, wouldn’t have happened without Hakata Gensuke.
Without 2014.

Whenever my white friends said it was too ‘porky’, too ‘heavy’ I just want to hurl them back to Shop Ramen. Lock all of them up where they belong.

They had no idea what it took to make ramen like that, to import the knowledge and system all the way from Japan. The shop manager told me every time their noodle machine breaks, they had to fly a guy in to fix it. They didn’t have to, but they did.

I’m also sucking up to them out of guilt, because, I don’t eat at Hakata Gensuke anymore.

(Sorry Sean, I know you’re on the mailing list.)

In my defense, there’s one right across my street in Carlton, and there’s also a chicken one in QV, which, by the way, serves the best karaage in Melbourne, hands down. Don’t buy coffee; spend $3 on a piece of fried chicken.

I’m a dad now, I don’t have 30 minutes to queue in the middle of Chinatown.

Also, because I’m kinda over tonkotsu ramen.
My body just can’t take it anymore.
It’s not you, it’s my age.

So, where is my favourite ramen place in 2021?

I’ll talk about it in the next newsletter.

For now, we should all thank Hakata Gensuke.
Without them, we’d still be cavemen crawling with dirt in our mouths.
Thanks to them, we learned to walk upright.


To be continued.

2 newsletters in a week? That’s right.

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