From wanko soba and cold reimen noodles to miso milk curry ramen, check out the video below and step into the vast, flavorful world of Japanese noodles!

Stay tuned until the end of the video and learn all about the Michinoku trail from JI team member Chiara Terzuolo, which is an incredible hike that hugs the Pacific coast of Tohoku.

The post Learn all about Japanese gourmet ramen & noodles with John Daub! (Live from Japan Rail Cafe in Tokyo station) appeared first on Jarman International KK.

However, one place where it can be argued that the Japanese are letting themselves down is in the organic and natural foods department. Most of us have come from countries where the majority of supermarkets have a large organic selection, and the only reason it may not is if said supermarket only sells organic goods. The same can not be said of Japan, unfortunately, and organic pickings are thin on the ground.

Albeit slowly, things are, thankfully changing and there are a few places that stock either organic or pesticide-free goods. The trick is in finding where you can get them.

H&R Group’s Japan Info Swap shares with us a few of the more popular organic supermarkets as well as farmer’s markets in the Tokyo area. Check out their informative post: Eating Organic in Tokyo.

Japan Info Swap has been set up by the H&R Group as part of its relocation service, to assist expats in Japan by providing useful and easily accessible information to enhance daily living. Visit their blog, sign up for their newsletter, or download their free e-book about living in Japan.

The post Eating Organic in Tokyo appeared first on Jarman International KK.

We would certainly have to agree that Japan, including Tokyo is a pretty fantastic place to visit!  If you need convincing of this or you would just like some help planning a trip to Japan, you will find many helpful articles on travel website Deep Japan.   The most popular category on Deep Japan is ‘Eat and Drink’.  Here you will find over 300 articles with advice for tourists on eating and drinking your way around Japan, supporting Alex Vallis’ claims of Tokyo having amazing food at a reasonable price.  In fact his article by Lee Reeve about the Bluff Bakery serves to reinforce three of Vallis’ claims – Japan has great pastries, cheap eats and wonderful people!

The post Deep Japan – 7 Reasons Why Tokyo is the New Paris – Food and Wine appeared first on Jarman International KK.

It’s difficult to begin a discussion on Ramen if you don’t conceive of it in the proper way. Ramen tends to be thought of as one specific dish of the Japanese food roster; a standardized combination of noodles with a salty broth, topped with some vegetables and possibly meat and or eggs. Whereas this is indeed the standard, the discussion only begins at this understanding. Much in the same way that a hamburger must necessarily contain meat and bread, a bowl of ramen is only held to the fundamental elements of noodles and broth; from there it’s a deep and complicated process with countless variations and flavors depending on region and seasons, but here we can start to explore it from the ground up.

The best way to begin to unravel the complex world of ramen is to start with the soup. This is where every ramen shop both begins and ends their day of hustling bowls to customers. You may have seen instant ramen soup in the form of powder or bouillon, but you obviously won’t see any legitimate ramen shop using that in Japan. The soup is cooked with special attention to timing and flavor combinations, and in many cases needs to sit and slow cook for hours on end. Varying amounts of oil, meat, vegetables, and stocks are used in creative ways to get a flavor that is unique to a specific shop, or chain of shops. Just as the shop began the day centered on perfecting their own unique soup, the shop may often close early if the soup runs out.

The soup determines the title of the ramen. One can order “ramen”, or go out to eat “ramen”, but they always know the specific type of ramen they are eating. Thus, to understand where to begin your investigation into the most perfect ramen for your pallet, let’s have a look at the primary styles of ramen soup that originally were developed in different areas of Japan but have become available everywhere, at least in large areas. Presenting the big 4.

Shoyu, or soy sauce based ramen, although not necessarily standard these days, is probably the most “standard”, or rather “stereotypical” flavor. It’s what comes to mind when most think of Japanese ramen, as it’s closest to the “cup of noodles” flavor. Shoyu ramen was developed in the early 1900’s in Tokyo’s downtown area of Asakusa. Since ramen originally came from China, and chinese ramen is also largely soy-sauce based, this was the most common flavor for some time.

Somewhat similar to Shoyu ramen, Shio (lit. salt) ramen has a sharp and salty flavor that in general is much lighter in terms of oil than other flavors of ramen, but still has the filling qualities one comes to expect. It’s not exactly clear which region of Japan is most particular to Shio ramen, as it was developed along with Shoyu ramen in the early 20th century as the popularity of ramen skyrocketed across Japan.

Tonkotsu (lit. pork bone) is certainly on the heavier side of ramen, and presents itself as the chief rival to Shoyu ramen. Made from slow boiling pork and pork bones to create a thick stock. This ramen was originally developed in southern Japan, in Fukuoka prefecture, and is sometimes referred to by the original region “hakata” where it is most associated with. The original style is difficult to pinpoint as this ramen in particular has many different methods of preparation. Tonkotsu is now extremely popular all over Japan and is also used in combination with shoyu (although many ramen fanatics oppose this).

Miso ramen is most generally associated with the colder regions of Japan, as the miso paste has a special thick and warming property that just seems to go hand in hand with a winter morning. The base of the soup is often tonkotsu broth, or in some cases beef broth, and then the miso is subsequently added right before serving to give it an overall creamy and thick quality.

Ramen only begins with the soup, but at the end of the day, this can be the most decisive factor in the ramen experience. The flavors listed above are only the most basic building blocks of ramen soup, and each store will have their own unique combinations of different flavors to for example give their shoyu ramen a slightly more fishy flavor, or just as easily take away some of the oil content from a tonkotsu broth to make it more drinkable. The next step in ramen is the noodle varieties, and finally one can then move on to the subject of toppings. The exponential world of ramen may seem overwhelming, but a bit of time in Japan will allow you to experience a very surprising range of flavors from this single food concept. It kind of leaves a hamburger in the dust in terms of diversity.

The post Ramen, the Big 4 Soups appeared first on Jarman International KK.

Winter in Japan:

Electric blanket? Try an electric table.

Japan is known for its richly unique seasons… radiating heat in the summer, bursting with life in the spring, relaxing with a cool and serene autumn, and then, although beautiful in its own
regard, pummeling people with bitingly cold winters.

Despite this, winter in Japan can be a deep and interesting experience, particularly if you ski or snowboard, and also, curling up under a Japanese style Kotatsu just puts you on a different planet of relaxation. A Kotatsu is basically a table with a heating unit on the underside of it, and it also has a blanket draped around it to keep the heat in. Japan (particularly in larger cities) has no central heating for the most part, so alternative methods to stay warm are common, and although they don’t heat your whole house, they focus the heat where it needs to be, creating a haven of comfort from the wicked cold all around you. Small portable heaters, electric blankets, and perhaps a heating unit designed to heat one room are the norm.
Getting up to go to the bathroom can be a journey…but it’s worth it for the high dosage of heat waiting for you when you return.

If one thing is for sure, eating good food on a cold winter evening in any country can be a deeply satisfying feeling. When it’s hot and muggy outside, just about the only things that sound appetizing are cold snacks or drinks. However, if there is any time to enjoy the vast cuisine of Japan, it’s during the winter.

Cold raw fish ? During the winter you ask? I’m sorry, but sushi and other stereotypical varieties of rice, pickled vegetables, and fish meals are only one very small and (in my opinion) unappealing aspect of Japanese cuisine. Here are a few common Japanese dishes just to give you a glimpse of some of the deep, heavy, and warm flavors of Japan:

Ramen.

You may or may not have had “Top Ramen”, or “Cup of Noodles” cheap ramen solutions which are available worldwide. However, ramen is a traditional Chinese noodle dish that has been taken to new extremities of refinement, fanaticism, and flavor in Japan; with some shops perfecting their methods over generations. This here is Miso ramen, more common to colder areas of Japan like Hokkaido, or Niigata. However, there are many varieties of ramen, and like snowflakes, no two are quite the same. The world of ramen is complex, as there are many many varieties, combinations, flavors, and preparation methods, but the 4 major categories are: Shio (salt), Shoyu (Soy sauce), Miso, and Tonkotsu (Pork stock). Forget about the starving college student, a good bowl is about 10 bucks in Tokyo.

Nabe. (na-be)

This is, in a word, Japanese stew.

Like ramen, the varieties in flavor and preparation are many, and it is often up to the cook to decide what the stew has in it. Most commonly is a variety of meat, tofu, green onions, and mushrooms. But cabbage, spinach, bean sprouts, meat balls, noodles and the like are not uncommon. In general, after most of the contents have been consumed, the remaining soup can be used as a base to add noodles in. People “top off” their stew in this way; a stew round 2 if you will.

Don-buri.

We may know of asian “rice bowls”. This is one of them, called “Katsudon“: “katsu” or “ton-katsu” referring to batter-fried pork slices. Once again, there are many rice bowl varieties, but many follow a similar formula with meat, eggs (scrambled, raw, or fried), and vegetables (usually just onions and a small amount of pickled veggies).
Some miso soup goes good with one of these, and the rice fills you up nicely.

Okonomiyaki.

This one tends to be a little more well-known from what I have seen amongst my non-Japanese cohorts. It is sometimes called a Japanese pancake or a Japanese pizza. However, this is somewhat inaccurate, as pizza or pancake are only comparable in that they are round. Okonomiyaki is a concoction of batter and cabbage to hold it together, and then usually fried on a flat grill with bacon and possibly eggs, then garnished with a variety of toppings: seaweed flakes, fish shavings, mayonnaise, and of course Japanese “sauce” (kind of like less sugary barbecue sauce).

Japanese food is actually quite heavy, as you may gather from the above. The typical view of Japanese food held by many (myself at one time included) is largely stuck in the past when Japanese people were tiny. Portions have grown and Japanese people are eating more and more meat, and seeking greater bang for their buck for food. In fact, sometimes Japanese dishes will just go completely overboard and shoot for a new level of fullness and explosive flavor to make even the most overworked salaryman on the coldest winter night fall asleep, fattened with a smile on his face. Welcome to the deep, and occasionally fanatical world of Japanese food…We’ll try our best to coverall this month on Omotenashi TV,

Don’t mess around with “Ramen Jiro”kid. There’s about a kilo of noodles under there…

The post "Stock" up for the Winter- Japanese soul food appeared first on Jarman International KK.