'Tabata Noodle': This Hells Kitchen epitomizes a watering down of the ramen craze

Ramen is a New York fetish. At Ippudo and Totto Ramen and Momofuku Noodle Bar, we slurp and suck away and lick with longing at empty bowls. For Americans who know no other ramen than the instant variety, boiled over camp stoves or microwaved in college dorms, the prospect of a fancy alternative—invariably of artisanal provenance—seems wholly novel and miraculous. Thus we set out, investing the ordinary lunches of the salaryman with uncanny power. We fixate on the soup bone and its creamy marrow.

Although Momofuku Ando invented instant ramen in 1958, the word “ramen” first entered Japanese vocabulary during the ’20s when Wang Wencai brought lamian, Chinese hand-pulled noodles, to Sapporo. This transnational exchange was not without its politics—the defeat of China in the Sino-Japanese War, which brought hordes of Chinese immigrants to Japan, primed the market. The Russian Revolution forced Wencai to Japan. Even Ando’s invention came about from overtly political circumstances: after a post-World War II economic boom and an influx of American wheat flour, instant ramen seemed like a guaranteed success. The contemporary Japanese fascination with ramen follows from these political complexities. Ramen has come to mean industry and modernization.

In contrast, the contemporary foodie fascination with ramen centers on its culinary artistry. A dish that is essentially noodles, broth, shreds of meat, and wayward vegetables gains extraordinary value when treated as transcendent. In America, the political nuances of ramen have been ignored and, instead, “fancy” ramen has become absorbed into a myth of Japanese aesthetics. Fatty pork-bone broth, springy noodles, pork belly—all prepared with a wise touch, all with the deep purity and richness of flavor associated with Japanese cooking as monistic phenomenon.

A recent New York Times “$25 and Under” column declares ramen mania over: “Last year’s exotic becomes this year’s everyday. Now, news that an excellent ramen joint with house-made broth has opened in Midtown can be processed calmly.” The NYTimes refers to Tabata Noodle, a little ramen shop stuck on a shabby Hell’s Kitchen stretch. Tabata is cheap, and Tabata is good, but never would Tabata provoke the same fervor as Ippudo or Momofuku. The noodles are not artisanal! The meat is not sustainable! The broth is, or was on one visit, woefully weak, like third-steep tea.

For all the New York Times’ posturing, Tabata Noodle is not especially newsworthy—at least for the 1%. This marginal restaurant has, by no other virtue than the ramen fetish, stepped beyond its pay grade. The hysteria has passed, but the leering eye still lingers.

Tabata is good for what it is good for: big servings of well-prepared but boring ramen on the cheap. Kyushu ramen is quite beige, vaguely porky, and rather bland—not the thick cream of the finest ramen broths, but a thin, blue milk fit for lean times. To avoid disappointment, order the more creative and Burmese-influenced dishes, like the Tabata ramen, which includes coconut milk. Sutamina ramen, a spicy miso-and-soy sauce-flavored soup, merits special attention. Thick and rich and sinus-stimulating oily garlic and runny egg pleasures abound.

College students trapped between microwave dinners and Manhattan’s ramen splendors should consider Tabata for a second date, a lunchtime outing, a people-watching adventure, or a Tuesday night dinner. If the ramen fetish has lost its frenzy, it has not lost its restorative power. If we have forgotten why we care about instant noodles, Tabata may rehabilitate us. And if we are exhausted with trying to understand the world in a noodle bowl, it may be best to slurp away in ignorance.