Though Kyoto may be known for a thick, rich local variety of ramen, it’s also home to a small shop called Menbaka Ichidai that specializes in a style of ramen that is rarely found nowadays, generally known as negi ramen, or “green onion ramen.”
And yet, somehow, I feel like the name does not tell the full story.
This particular ramen shop has opted instead to rebrand it as “fire ramen,” perhaps because it is flavored with green onion-flavored oil that, just before serving, is heated and lit on fire, then poured into the bowls just before serving.
I don’t know if I would necessarily go back there a second time for this particular dish (it was pretty good, but fairly out of the way for me), but I’m certainly glad I at least visited once.
Hello! I’m Greg, an American who has lived in Japan since 2008. I have a tremendous fondness for both reading and writing, which helps out quite a bit in my work as a translator: after all, at its core, the job is built on writing. I’ve always been fascinated with languages, and how they can differ in how they treat even seemingly basic, fundamental things. In particular, there are many common Japanese words that have no good English equivalent, so finding a good way to translate them can be a really interesting challenge.
My other hobbies include cooking (Serious Eats is one of my favorite websites, and I cook dinner from scratch nearly every evening), playing games with friends (both tabletop and video games), calligraphy (both English and Japanese, filling an A6 page with some sort of calligraphy practice every day for the past few years), photography, and a long-held interest in computers (as a teenager, I installed operating systems recreationally).
I also drink too much oolong tea.