[i_love_cooking]

I have never yet been to Japan, but whenever I visit a big city, I try a ramen shop. To be honest, so far it has been a let down. IDK, I guess maybe I'm expecting too much from a bowl of soup, with noodles and condiments. As a form factor, it's genius. But for the price that it is usually sold at in western cities, it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I feel like it has been a bit too overhyped for what it is.

BTW, you can also replicate the form factor using western cooking ingredients/traditions and it still works pretty well.

[emsy]

That’s true in my experience, but Ramen in Japan is actually considerably better. The only good Ramen I ever had in Europe was in Düsseldorf but the owner imports pork from Japan.

[nixass]

Düsselsorf is actually Japanese expats/migrants hotspot in Germany. Had great Japanese foos there on multiple occasions

[scns]

Highest japanese population outside of Japan IIRC.

[guessmyname]

Düsseldorf, Germany, is home to Europe’s third-largest Japanese community [1] after London and Paris, featuring roughly 15,000 Japanese residents and hundreds of businesses.

Brazil has the largest ethnic Japanese population outside of Japan, with an estimated 2 million people of Japanese descent. Most of these individuals live in the state and city of São Paulo, which features the famous Japanese neighborhood of Liberdade [2][3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_community_of_Düsseldo...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberdade_%28district_of_São_P...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_diaspora

[riedel]

I was actually surprised by the selection of cities in the OP until I learned that the author is the director of AI at der Spiegel. Related to the other comments on the 3D: maybe this can evolve to some gaussian splatting/diffusion world model thing...

[jedschmidt]

agreed. i think the economics of ramen make less sense outside of japan, where it’s more expensive and turnaround is slower because folks linger longer (often to amortize the cost of waiting to get seated in the first place).

[asyx]

In Düsseldorf that’s not the case. The Japanese restaurant are very distinctly less chill than other restaurants. Like, where you’d usually spend 3 hours in a normal restaurant, it is kinda expected that you eat and leave a Ramen shop within an hour.

[shermantanktop]

I know this is the American in me but: what the heck do you do for 3 hours? Especially at a place that doesn’t serve 5 courses. If you’re hanging with old friends, maybe, but even then the conversation can slow down after a while.

[asyx]

I don’t know how restaurants work in America but generally you go to a restaurant to hang out here as well. I think service is generally slower. Drinks are also not free refills so a lot of restaurants do get fancy with their drinks so you try those as well. We usually also get at least desert and a coffee. Three hours is maybe not the norm but most restaurants plan in 2.5 hours slots.

Like, it’s not just eating. It’s socializing as well. You use the restaurant as a place for conversation.

If the average American fast food place here is reflective of the average American restaurant experience, I think that’s a big difference. Even the most run down gyros or kebab place that also sells burgers and pizza will have tables outside on the street with ash trays and will sell you a cold drink. But even five guys, which is a lot more expensive than those places, has lighting that is more suitable for surgery than chatting.

If you go to places like France, people will get an espresso and a little thing of olives and just sit there smoking and people watching. Alone. That’s maybe a bit much for me but a 2 to 3 hour dinner with friends seems very normal for me.

Oh and now I have a kid so a lot of times the waiters will play with the kid or the environment is suitable for the kid to just play alone and then it’s a good opportunity to just have a cold drink or a coffee with the my wife in peace after a meal so even with only my family we’d do 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

[erikerikson]

The fast food experience is a far end of the experience even for the US. I've experienced long meals here in the US too. They are much less systemic than what I experienced and observed in the UK, France, and, Italy. I've had the fast food experience in the UK too; e.g. sausage rolls at Gregg's.

[mc32]

Isn’t ramen in Japan fast-food? Of the people who dine-in, few people would stay at a McDonalds an hour to “dine”. It’s go in order, eat and get out.

And, like burgers you do have high end joints too.

Also, like burgers ramen isn’t considered “healthy” food. High sodium, high fat, and somewhat low in nutrients. It’s basically fast-food.

[exiguus]

Personally, its my Japanese Pizza. Both ramen and pizza have historical roots as affordable, filling meals for the working class and poor communities. If you avoid the pork, it becomes less fast-food-ish.

[asyx]

I don’t think an hour at McDonald’s is that crazy either though.

[toast0]

Lots of McDonalds locations have signs indicating lingering past 30 minutes is loitering.

[mc32]

I’m guessing back in the late sixties to early seventies going to McDonalds could have been a special night out and it could have been a place people stayed an hour. Some people may still linger in a McDonalds for an hour but I’d have think that’d be an exception. They’re loud, crowded and the seats are not entirely made for comfort. It’s not a place that strikes the imagination with, oh, there’s a place we can go eat and relax at.

[sokoloff]

There’s a surprisingly robust Asian restaurant scene within a few blocks of the train station there. I try to eat there every time I visit Drupa.

[koziserek]

Vegan ramen in Uki Green in Warsaw..! Mandatory for me whenever visiting this country.

[m4rtink]

Can also recommend Ramen Brno in Brno, Czech Republic. :)

[asyx]

Happy you enjoyed the ramen in my home city!

[retrochameleon]

San Francisco is an example of a place with higher than average Japanese population where you have a chance of getting some really good authentic stuff. I recently ate at a place that caught my eye with chicken katsu curry, and that meal teleported me back to Japan.

[bmelton]

Hawaii would be another place (or set of places, depending on how you want to collate)

[gusgus01]

Oahu has some of the best US ramen I've ever had. Pretty much incomparable to most cities I've lived in, including places like SF and Seattle.

[zomglings]

Could you share the restaurant? I maintain a list.

[_0ffh]

I've been to Japan - the first cheap buy-and-nuke-at-home ramen from the konbini around the corner I ate there completely blew me away (†)! It was decisively better than what I would realistically expect to get in a restaurant in the west. I don't know how they do it, but I learned never to underestimate the Japanese people’s dedication to their craft.

(†) For the curious, it was chāshū ramen.

Edit: To avoid confusion, I do not mean instant ramen, but a plastic bowl of chilled, pre-prepared take away ramen soup.

[dzhiurgis]

That impressed me too, but I brush it off to hunger and other biases.

> chāshū ramen.

Chashu is just name for pork theh put in soup. Main charecterization is type of broth - tonkotsu is the hardest to pull off as it requires 8 hours of boiling bones (but I’ve seen ready made broth to buy so I suspect most shops use that). Miso one is pretty trivial to make at home. I guess not many know this but one type of tare (condiment you put in ramen) is literally charred garlic (30 minutes in oil or so, then blend it). Once you learn this you’ll always spot it (typically in tonkotsu).

As for western shops I agree they are mostly meh, some very much so. Even decent ones you are more of a buying Japanese ramen experience than the food itself lol (I succumb to it myself).

[hurflmurfl]

I think the boiling is closer to 18 hours. I do a pretty good one in about 5 in my instant pot, though.

Another big problem with getting a "ramen" in a random western restaurant is noodles. If they don't make them themselves, the dry shelf stable stuff is just not good (at least what I can find in my EU country). As I was slowly upping my ramen game at home, the single biggest difference in quality was when I started making my own noodles.

I suppose if a shop markets itself as a ramen shop, you have a chance of getting a decent bowl. Most of the "asian" or even "japanese" restaurants in my city are places where they add cream to tonkotsu to make it white...

[_0ffh]

I know chashu is the pork, but I don't remember the broth type. Sure it wasn't miso, I think maybe salt or soy sauce type.

[makeitdouble]

For most foreign dishes you can't just compare the total price to local food. I'm saying that having ordered pizza in Japan, and an actually good one with Buffala for instance will be twice to three times the price you'd pay in Italy.

Ramen chains managed by Japanese people are decently good when I tried them in France (Ippudo for instance), it's not that far from what's served in Japan. It costs 1.5x to 2x more, and the default orders will be slightly adapted to the locals (harder noodles and lower grease by default) but that's par for the course.

> BTW, you can also replicate the form factor using western cooking ingredients/traditions and it still works pretty well.

The toughest part is the sheer amount of time to prepare the soup and dexterity to get good noodles. Spending 8h on the soup with all the ingredients, and repeat I don't know how many times to get to a decent balance is a dedication I don't think I'll ever have to be honest.

[titanomachy]

I'm currently in a coastal American city, and all food is expensive here! You can have a casual lunch or dinner at a ramen shop, a Neapolitan pizzeria, a Thai restaurant, or an American burger spot and you will pay $25-30 per person after tax and tip at each of them. (Assuming you don't drink alcohol, and assuming you avoid both bottom-barrel and upscale places.)

There doesn't really seem to be a "cheap local default" option like there would be in Japan, or Portugal. I guess McDonald's sort of fills that niche, but this neighbourhood doesn't have one. The two best "cheap" options near me are both Vietnamese.

One nice thing about this is that there's no penalty for experiencing a variety of food.

[dgunay]

At least where I'm at, you can still go cheaper for pizza and burgers. In-N-Out's combo meals start at about $8. If I want to, I can also get 2 big slices of serviceable pizza for a bit less than $10 in a mom & pop shop, and this is in a city that IMO punches well below its weight when it comes to pizza.

[yonaguska]

I've been able get better or equivalent results than most non-japanese ramen places near me by starting with miso paste and fresh noodles from the local h-mart, without the massive amount of work that typically goes into ramen.

[cactusplant7374]

Not everyone can fly to Italy for a pizza to save money! But seriously, pizza in most countries is horrible. When I lived in Ecuador the pizza had some really funky cheese. I'm not sure if you can even call it cheese. That's probably why it is almost impossible to order a plain cheese pizza. They are trying to cover it up with an assortment of vegetables and meats.

[ngruhn]

Ramen is a great soup. But I haven't been blown away in any shop not even Japan. EXCEPT that random place in Kyoto we went into without plan. I think it's even a franchise. Not an ancient shop with 100 year tradition or something:

https://salmonnoodlekyoto.com/

I got the "Salmon Dandan Noodles". Good lord that broth. No idea what was in there. It wasn't clear; rather slightly thick and creamy. And the salmon was so tender. I don't even like pork but I also ate that without thinking. Man I still miss that dish.

[mark_l_watson]

You can buy really good Ramen ingredients online and make your own. If you are not a vegetarian and don’t mind eating pork, you can buy sealed packets containing about 2 or 3 fluid ounces of thick pork bone broth, reduced to a thick liquid. I like a lot of veggies, and buy good noodles.

My wife, who I have been married to most of my long life, has never liked vegetables. I make Ramen and she eats her veggies as if they weren’t even in the Ramen. Just a little life hack I thought I would share, it might work with kids also.

[plaguuuuuu]

It's almost like people have different taste in food!

It's also kind of a wild take "I have nearly zero experience in <thing from other culture> and I don't understand why people from that culture enjoy it"

Re price and prep

First, it's quite difficult to make. Try it, lol.. but by your admission you haven't had anything decent.

Second - in Japan, Ramen is mostly pretty cheap, a lot of places have a vending machine where you pay for a bowl and get a ticket with an order number. It's really not a fancy or pricey experience unless you're somewhere upmarket.

[postexitus]

That's why you should try it in Japan.

[embedding-shape]

> But for the price that it is usually sold at in western cities

What are those prices specifically? In Barcelona (one of those western cities, imo) at a good ramen place, you get Gyozas for ~5 EUR, and a nice ramen for ~12-14 EUR, add a drink and you end up with ~20 EUR per person, which strikes me as relatively affordable for eating out, but maybe the metropolitan prices have biased me over time. Is this expensive/cheap compared to the other cities you've tried ramen in?

> BTW, you can also replicate the form factor using western cooking ingredients/traditions and it still works pretty well.

Isn't that just a stew at that point? How is it still ramen if you switch out all the ingredients and the broth that makes ramen ramen?

[stasomatic]

> But for the price that it is usually sold at in western cities What are those prices specifically?

In Barcelona (one of those western cities, imo) at a good ramen place, you get Gyozas for ~5 EUR, and a nice ramen for ~12-14 EUR, add a drink and you end up with ~20 EUR per person, which strikes me as relatively affordable for eating out, but maybe the metropolitan prices have biased me over time. Is this expensive/cheap compared to the other cities you've tried ramen in?

About $20 for a medium bowl in my not very fancy area of Miami.

A large delicious Tonkutsu in North Hollywood pre-covid was $15.

The online restaurant listings, at least in the States, have been usurped by arbitragers. Expect a 30% or higher surcharge for online orders, if you yourself pick up.

[postexitus]

Nice Ramen sold at 14 EUR are those prices. In Japan, you can have a nice hinge quality bowl of Ramen for around 7-8 EUR.

[pibaker]

Comparing price tags across Japan and the west is kind of meaningless now considering how much the yen devalued. I don't think the prices would look that good for a Japanese person paid in yen.

[embedding-shape]

Besides fast food, isn't it always like that though? Of course Japanese food is cheaper in Japan, but I bet Spanish food is more expensive there than in Spain? Or Peruvian food being a lot more expensive in Europe compared to in Peru itself, it kind of makes sense.

[riffraff]

yes, that is the case.

But I think the point is that paying 7€ makes it a pretty good deal, at 14€ for "a bowl of soup" it becomes a meh experience.

Similarly, as an Italian abroad, I can get a decent pizza margherita in Budapest, but it costs 12 euros and I get upset every time, you shouldn't spend that much for a bit of dough and mozzarella :)

[OJFord]

Cries in London

[StilesCrisis]

I had a lousy burger in Japan.

[brailsafe]

I don't think this is unique to Ramen at all. Burgers should not cost $20-30 for some limp smooshed beef, a burrito should also not be $15-20, and tacos should sure as hell not be $3-5 per tiny taco. It's all bullshit; none of that food is worth that money. But... I suspect it costs that much because people pay that much, and because the cost of every other aspect of service puts pressure on the restaurants to try to push the ceiling of what it's worth.

As a ramen lover, I try to take advantage of value oriented cheaper pricing when it's available.

As a relatively tall active man, I need to pregame restaurants with something more cost effective, and even still need to order 1.5 to 2x what everyone else does in order to feel satiated. (~82kg, 192cm)

At least ramen takes some time to eat. When I go into a standard burger place nowadays, it takes me literally 20 seconds sometimes to finish a $20+ burger, and then I'm just sitting there waiting for people to delicately nibble their way through what is a deeply overrated culinary experience, in many cases. Like c'mon, give me some damn food, I'll go get it myself.

[Hendrikto]

> it takes me literally 20 seconds sometimes to finish a $20+ burger, and then I'm just sitting there waiting for people to delicately nibble their way through

Honestly, that sounds like a you problem. Maybe try eating instead of guzzling. You may even find time to enjoy the food.

[brailsafe]

> Honestly, that sounds like a you problem.

It is a me problem, in the sense that I have eyes and tastebuds; the Emperor has no clothes and tastes no better than many other people.

The food is mid and costs double what it should. I usually find that Ramen is not mid but does cost twice as much as it should.

[linguae]

I don’t know where you live, but in the Bay Area prices have exploded since COVID. I remember a decade ago when it was still possible to get a super burrito for under $10; in fact, the price was $7.75 for a carne asada super burrito at El Farolito in San Francisco. A burger was under $10, a deli sandwich was about $8-9, and tacos were around $1.50 at Taco Bell and no more than $3 at a proper taqueria. The prices weren’t cheap, but they never felt bank-breaking. Unfortunately prices have skyrocketed since COVID. Unfortunately my income hasn’t matched; I made the individually fulfilling but poor financial decision of pursuing a research career and not working for OpenAI/Anthropic/FAANG/NVIDIA. Thus, two years ago I quit eating out in the Bay Area, except when socializing. It’s sad making six figures and feeling priced out of dining out, just like I’m priced out of housing and RAM since I can’t compete with Big Tech. I now cook, which I guess is healthier but is also time-consuming.

Japan, on the other hand, is heaven for those with US dollars. A bowl of ramen is around ¥1,100 here (I’m here on a research visit), and they generally taste amazing! Even a Big Mac meal from McDonald’s is far cheaper than in the Bay Area.

[decimalenough]

FWIW, prices have exploded in Japan as well. Ramen used to be ¥500 in a standard Chinese restaurant, maybe a few hundred more for a fancy one, and no restaurant dared breach the ¥1000 barrier.

Fortunately for the traveler, this has been more than matched by the implosion of the yen exchange rate, meaning in USD terms ¥1100 today is still cheaper than ¥500 ten years ago.

[brailsafe]

I'm on the west coast but the prices aren't much cheaper elsewhere if at all. It's way cheaper in Japan to get ramen, but probably much more expensive to get sushi, which is maybe the last value oriented quality meal I'm usually able to find. Canadian A&W and Popeyes are quite good as well (I found U.S Popeyes lacking flavor and juiciness), but never ever get combos at fast food places, only the burger. McDonald's is tasting more and more like cardboard while their prices rise.

Right around When "smash" patties started becoming the next millenial fad is when I first started seeing absurd prices like that. Sides stopped being included, and I ordered a double patty at a local place, paid $16 for just the damn burger, felt insulated, and then just left. I continue trying to keep an open mind, but I tend to be skeptical that I'll get anything worthwhile for my money. If only I'd had a huge amount invested in stocks when the value of money halved.

[linguae]

I agree regarding the West Coast in general. Seattle and Los Angeles are also similarly expensive, and even Sacramento (my hometown) isn’t much of an improvement. A few months ago I was floored to see a $13 burrito at a place that was just $8 pre-pandemic. Sacramento is not inundated with rich people like the Bay Area, so what gives? The average Sacramento resident can’t afford those prices.

I went to St. Louis, Missouri on a business trip two years ago and was pleasantly shocked by the food prices there. I felt like I entered a time machine to 2016 California.

Regarding sushi in Japan, prices run the gamut from cheap conveyor-belt sushi chains (like Hama Sushi and Sushiro) and grocery/convenience store sushi (which is surprisingly good here) to ultra-expensive, reservation-only restaurants with sushi served by world-renowned chefs, and everything in between. I’m not an expert on sushi, but I find that $5 grocery store sushi in Japan often beats what costs $20 back in the Bay Area. To be fair, though, the Bay Area has many excellent sushi restaurants, and while it’s more expensive in the Bay Area than Japan for the same quality, the counterargument is a meal at a Bay Area restaurant is much cheaper than a flight to Japan. I just happen to be fortunate enough to go to Japan twice a year, so I just wait until I’m in Japan to have sushi.

[sgerenser]

The Big Mac thing is kinda sad, just a few years ago I used to tell people who complained about the increasing cost of fast food “You just gotta use the App!” Which was true, with the McD’s app, a Big Mac might be something like $3 or maybe buy-one-get-one in the app, but $6 in store. But it seems like those days are over, the fast food places realized they were losing too much margin as more and more people started using their apps. Oh well, better to cut way back on fast food consumption anyway.

[folkrav]

Last I checked, restaurants actually do run on razor thin margins. A fraction of the costs is food - IIRC on average about a third. Most of it is rent (typically very high in places where you’d have foot traffic) and labor (pretty labor intensive sector for a given output).

[pibaker]

I mean, you are not just paying for food. You are paying for someone's time to make your food.

The eating out price shock since 2020 is IMO mostly a result of wage gains in the bottom earners outpacing those earning more.

[brailsafe]

Of course this is true, along with rent and everything else that goes into the cost of doing business. My problem is mostly to do with the fact that in many cases, overall prices doubled, while my satisfaction with the product diminished; Ramen and Sushi are some of the outliers, whereby their prices are still excessive, but the product is still satisfying for the price compared to others

[estearum]

Spoiler alert: it's rent.

[brailsafe]

Ya, that's usually what does it.

[Hikikomori]

Tried many ramen places in Europe and only two were close to good ramen in Japan. Kodawari in Paris and totemo ramen in Stockholm.

[cedws]

Ramen in London is atrocious, not only is it priced as a luxury food (ramen is supposed to be fast and cheap), it's tasteless and often lukewarm.

I went on holiday to Spain and found they have a lot of pretty decent Japanese restaurants for some reason.