Berkeley Diary
Masaki YAMAOKA
May/25/2005 My Finds to Word
Lag(5) Noodle Soup VS. Ramen
In down town Berkeley, there are many kinds of Asian restaurants,
Chinese, Taiwanese, Indian, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, and so on. A few
Japanese Sushi restaurants are also in Berkeley. But I heard that the
Sushi
shops are not popular here.
On a day In April,
I found a nice ramen shop. Its name is Ryowa Ramen. It serves the
genuine taste of Japanese Ramen by seasoning soy sauce. After that,
when I have dinner with friends, I always take them to
Ryowa Ramen.
I think the representative Japanese popular
cuisines are
curry rice and ramen. Curry is from India, and ramen is from China.
Japanese people had developed their favorite cuisines by using unique
and original seasoning. I like each of them. I cannot find any Japanese
curry shops at present. But four Thai curry shops are along
Shattuck Avenue. I think American people prefer Thai curry to
Japanese curry. As for ramen, they seem to prefer Japanese to
Chinese. Anyway I am happy I can eat a nice ramen in
USA.
Supermarkets also sell instant ramens
made by the American branch of Japanese companies. I sometimes buy
Sapporo Ichiban or Nissin
Top Ramen (15 flavors). The
package indicates that the food is "the noodle soup."
I think the name is not appropriate.
Noodle soup is a kind of soup and
soup noodle is a kind of noodle. In English, the modifying noun is
really an adjective, i.e. "noodle soup" is soup with noodles in it. And
In the ordinary
case, the main item of soup is flavored liquid. The ingredients are
just a
kind of extra. "Miso soup" (in Japanese, Miso-shiru) is
appropriate use.
But the main item of Ramen is not
soup but noodles. "Men" of "Ramen" means noodle. Most
Japanese people don't drink the soup of Ramen. Of course It has good
taste, but it is salty a little. If you always drink the soup
of Ramen, you will be high blood pressure. We may enjoy the flavor
eating noodles.