The dog ate the fucking sausage that we left on the counter
and so now we don’t have any sausage for her spaghetti pasta
Every ingredient contributes to the perfect bowl
My own philosophy of cooking is layering flavour
so as you’re tasting it, it sort of attacks your palate from all different places
and you really get a real flavor experience
Pull out, get the fuck out of the goddamn fucking place! Goddamn it
The whole goal really was to take my intense passion for Japan and Japanese
and take my intense passion for cooking
and figure out how to blend them
My fantasy was to assimilate into Tokyo
When people say: “Why would you ever think
you could succeed in a ramen shop in Tokyo?”
It’s because I’m a confident chef and I think I make good food
This ended up giving me all the things I dreamed of and more
I got to live in Japan, when I walked down the street
I was a respected member of the business community
The hook was that I’m a white guy making ramen and
I knew that people were going to come and check me out
I also knew if I didn’t nail it the first time
people would’ve walked out and never ever come back
Now that I’m in New York I feel no differently
We’ve been working really hard to sell the ramen gospel
because slurping noodles is fun
You can break my shio ramen into eight basic components
The soup and the noodles would be the star
everything else would be supporting characters
With my noodles I’ve put a lot of thought into
the amount of gluten in the flour
the amount of protein, which flours I use
I wanted them to have a textural experience
and to have a certain amount of aromatic quality
I just think that noodles need to make an impression
My soup is super clear-tasting chicken and fish
I make a really simple chicken soup:
it’s whole chickens and water, that’s it
Dashi is really what all Japanese cuisine is built upon
that smokiness from the fish
you can really get this real sense of the depth of flavor
There’s a tremendous amount of umami in it
You add a piece of fatty, warm chasu
and that bleeds into the soup and as you’re working
through your bowl, it’s a special treat
and I don’t flavor it very much
Even though it’s just that one piece, when you eat it
it should make a big impact and you say ‘wow!’
So shio ramen means salt ramen
The tare really is the main flavor bomb
so I use salt from several different regions of Japan
and I blend them together, so you get this very complex saltiness
that blends with the rest of the ingredients
The tare which is really a sofrito
and so we can move on from there to the egg
I spent as much time getting my egg right
as I did getting my noodles right
The yolk is as liquid as we can get it without the egg falling apart
Ramen without fat is not ramen
You need the fat to help the soup stick to the noodles—
I use a very small amount
Whenever you talk to the ramen geeks
they always talk about punch: it’s gotta have punch
The fish powder gives it that next sort of kick of flavor
The scallion, the onion flavor, enhances the whole soup
but it really does double purpose
It gives that ramen bowl a little step up
to make it a little bit more sophisticated
One of the great things about ramen is that it’s the maverick cuisine
You can make noise while you eat it and you can get messy
but it’s all in front of you in that bowl
and when the bowl is empty, you’re done
You’re driving too fast motherfucker