Ramen has hit the UK in a big way over the last decade. The ramen bandwagon went from nought to sixty awfully quickly – one minute we didn’t even know how to pronounce it, and the next, we were clambering over each other for bowls of soup and noodles. Of all the many ramen variations, it seems to be tonkotsu ramen that has captured our collective national hearts. This fatty, porcine broth originated in Fukuoka, Japan, but has spread like wildfire across the globe since.
It’s no surprise that we’re so enamoured really – Brits have always been suckers for comfort food. Just look at our culinary repertoire; roast chicken and potatoes; steak and kidney pudding; shepherd’s pie and countless others – all dishes that are designed with long winters, grey skies and frosty evenings in mind. These days of course, Britain is a huge melting pot of cultures, and we’re just as likely to tuck into a good chicken curry, a plate of spaghetti bolognese or a mound of egg fried rice in a foil box. We’re connoisseurs when it comes to good comfort food, which is perhaps why we were so quick to take tonkotsu to our hearts when it first arrived on our shores.
There are lots of places you can get a good bowl of ramen, but few inspire the dedication that Kanada-Ya does. Though the original site near Tottenham Court Road has been open for some years now, queues still snake out of the door and round the side of the restaurant, where hopeful punters take shelter under an awning and press their faces to the glass. It’s a beautiful marriage of cultures – delicious Japanese food meets peerless British queuing technique.
Thankfully, Kanada-ya have a couple of other outposts in London these days – one near Leicester Square and one at Angel, so you don’t have to stand around in the rain for your ramen fix. We dropped into the latter to get a few tips from the chefs about how to make a great bowl of ramen, and see if we could find out a few of their secrets.