Ramen is one of those things that elicits that kind of like nostalgia and longing that people want the balance of that noodles in soup matching together.

There's something that people crave.

It's like, like a drug roman definitely arrived in the states first as a convenience food, a snack food, a cheap food.

It's sort of unfortunate because I think people had a real idea that it was something that you eat when you can't afford to eat anything else.

I've had a lot of intron on that was the easiest milk to make around the house.

Go to food where you don't have like many other things.

I would say roman really hit the mainstream when a chef, then a young chef called David chang decided to open a noodle shop and he was korean american.

He had lived in Japan for a long time.

He said that he had to start making ramen because he could not get good ramen in new york.

It's a food group of its own and they literally cooked the shoot off.

Yeah, yeah.

He knew from having lived in Japan that roman was just a comment food, it wasn't something that people thought about that much.

They took it for granted.

And so he had this idea that has become very prevalent in american food, at least what you would call like hipster cuisine, which is to take something that's considered kind of a low and bring it up high.

So when you talk about elevating a food, things get very complicated.

We don't want to seem like we were being snobbish about things like cheeseburgers or ramen, A way that you don't want to elevate food is just by putting some foie gras on top of it or sprinkling some gold leaf on top when the food is about to be elevated.

Usually the first thing is all about authenticity.

It's going to be just like in Tokyo dar memory openness.

I think the introduction to the concept of artisanal ramen was in a film called Tampopo.

That was very popular at film festivals.

That chef in that Romania was obsessed with perfecting every part of ramen in the film probably was the first time I had ever heard anyone slurping that way and that loudly in a proper setting.

That's the kind of thing you are told never to do.

I learned later that there's actually a reason for it, which is that the broth of ramen is so hot that you really can't eat it unless you learn to suck in air at the same time.

That's fucking hot At 72,000.

Burn your face off.

There's infinite amount to learn.

I mean you can really go micro on the noodles for example, And I would say at least 70% of the products that we make our ramen noodles within the Roman uh, noodles that we make.

We have about 600 different types of Ramen noodles.

That could be different from the type of flour, blends, the mixture of the water and the ratios the textures, the thickness is the color and it really starts with the soup.

And so if the chef has a specific type of soup or type of roman they're looking to create, then it's a very good base starting point for us to start that conversation.

What is the last meal before I die ramming?

I hope I used a pressure cooker to get the high concentration of juice from a chicken.

I can get very strong flavor from my ingredients.

Yeah.

We use home booth chicken stock, a meeting of course.

Uh, soy sauce or sugar, salt.

Yeah, maybe seasonings.

It's a money bomb you can not taste, it's too high concentrated.

Uh taste very dynamic.

United States.

I can do everything in japan.

If I make like a new toy new style of ramen.

Some people said this is not ramen, it's very boring to me that feeling they really respect all styles, keep doing all the stuff all the time.

I just want to go to you know the new world which is the United States, then I can do a freestyle and then you know people enjoy, well he does that ramen is also a great example of the japanese term umami umami meaning mouth filling and savory.

Right?

And all kinds of soups have that they have fatty nous, they have salt.

They have a richness that almost cannot be described in english seaweed or kombu is in the broth and that's a very important part of it.

You know, people just love the salt and they crave the salt.

Yeah, I think that the toppings concept is something that is truly universal.

Things like shaved ice desserts, soft serve.

People love to customize and pile things on and ramen I think was one of the first things that we experienced in terms of japanese food that was like that.

I'll add this in here.

I will not miss the opportunity for some of this.

Oh yes!

At this stage that we're at now with ramen is let's make it our own.

We're going to take the best part of a traditional bowl of ramen, the things that we love but also pick from other cultures.

Ivan ramen is combining two ancient cultures, jewish culture and japanese culture.

This is how american food evolves.

We've done one experience with Chef McNamara or what are some of the things that we really enjoy about new york, tomatoes, italian influence of cheeses and pizza was what he thought.

So what he created was a very beautiful chicken broth paired with tomato sauce and sausage and really stir fried it and then pour the chicken broth over.

And then what we did is we made noodles out of durum semolina with kansi and ramen noodle flour and crafted this beautiful italian tomato ramen.

Things like the roman cheeseburger, which is something that was very popular and food trucks a couple of years ago where they literally took the blocks that come in the instant ramen and deep fried them and use them as the bun to make burgers.

Then there are things like dessert ramen made of a blue jello and melted shaped ice.

I love jell o.

So you have all these very creative young chefs coming up today.

Really?

I think pushing it to the edge.

I believe I can do more ramen in part, rahman allows you to be kind of free.

Maybe this is the reason why a lot more people are interested because you don't have so many like strict guidelines of this is what you can and cannot do.

But really, you can express yourself in the bowl of ramen.

Yeah.

Mhm.