Trifter

In the last decade or so, Americans seem to have developed a taste for authentic ramen. It used to be available primarily as a quick, easy, and decidedly mediocre snack of the “instant” variety. Even today, where I live (Sacramento), it’s rare for a Japanese restaurant to have ramen on the menu.  The nearest sources of passable authenticity are in San Francisco. Which is a shame. A good bowl of ramen is a wonderfully delicious meal.

I first discovered ramen in 1989 when I moved to Asahikawa, in Hokkaido, Japan’s northern most island. A city of about 350,000, located in the center of the island, Asahikawa was neither cosmopolitan nor possessed of any obvious charm. What the city could boast of was some fabulous ramen shops, of which my favorite was a place called “Santoka Ramen.” I must have eaten there at least once a week for six years. There were other shops that served delicious ramen, and I sampled quite a few over the years, but from my first bowl at Santoka, to my last, their ramen was unsurpassed. 

Santoka was unique in another respect. It was, in the late 80s and early 90s, the only restaurant, and one of the very few business establishments of any kind, in Asahikawa that enforced a strict no-smoking policy. In a country where you could second-hand smoke a pack of cigarettes on a thirty-minute train ride, having a smoke-free environment in which to enjoy some of the best ramen on the planet was a rare treat.

It might seem odd to find oneself, after more than a decade, feeling nostalgic about a bowl of noodle soup, but that’s just how good it was. So I was more than a little surprised when I discovered on the internet that Santoka Ramen was no longer just a shoe-box sized little 12-stool noodle shop in a nondescript city in faraway Hokkaido. Now a franchise, they’ve grown and spread not only to other parts of Japan, but also to Singapore and—more importantly for me—Southern California (as well as Chicago and New Jersey). I haven’t reached the point, yet, where I’m willing to drive 450 miles for lunch, but one of these days I’m going to find myself near Torrance or Costa Mesa or Santa Monica. And when I do, I’m definitely going to make whatever detour is required. If the American version of Santoka Ramen is anything like the original, it will be worth the trip.