家系ラーメン(iekei-ramen), one of the ultimate ramen noodles

 I love ramen.

The noodles came from China was arranged for Japanese people, and they are very popular in Japan. Of course me too.

There are various ramen in each area in Japan, I can't introduce all of them.

In this post, I will introduce 家系ラーメン(iekei-ramen) in Yokohama and I ate the ramen.

Summary

家系ラーメン(iekei-ramen) originted in Yokohama, Kanagawa prefecture.

The ramen use pork bone soup and thick noodles. And you can add some spice like garlic.

The ramen is mainly popular for young man.

What is iekei?

The word 家系ラーメン(iekei-ramen) is disassembled 家(ie, it means house), 系(kei, it means type), ラーメン(ramen).

But the ramen isn't homely. I don't make pork bone soup in my house.(Sometime, I made chicken soup because I like cooking. But people live in Japan may not make pork bone soup.)

The reason why the ramen is called ie-kei is derived from the name of the ramen shop that made of this kind of ramen.

And the ramen shop 吉村家(Yoshiouraya) still open and very popular enough to make long lines.

Yoshimuraya was created in 1974, the diciples working at Yoshimuraya became independent one after another, and named their ramen shop "〇〇家(〇〇-ya)" following Yoshimura-ya.

Birth of factory type ramen and their feature

As time went on, this type ramen have been popular and called iekei.

Some ramen shops adopted a central kichen system(they made soup at soup factory) instead of private management.

To make soup at factory has some advantage and disadvantage.

The advantage is ease of opening a store.

To make soup at the store needs cook's skill and gives the smell of pork bone soup around the store.

Making soup at factory resolved the problem. To change cook don't make  difference in taste and the shop don't annoy surrounding with pork bone smell.

But to make soup at the store has advantage, the soup is thick.

I think the reason why people loves pork bone soup ramen is the ramen has thick soup.(For example, Hakata ramen which is used pork bone soup in is very popular ramen too.)

However, recently, the soup of factory type ramen is getting thicker and evolving into a creamy taste that is defferent from private management.

But some ramen-mania says ramen is limited to private management.(The cook who work at central kichen style is working hard to provide delicious ramen too, I think both of ramen is delicious!)

町田商店(machida-syouten)

The introduction has become longer, I went 町田商店(machida-syouten) one of the popular iekei ramen (factory type).

Red sign board is marks.

Iekei ramen shops often use a meal ticket system.

You can select taste and topping.Traditional iekei ramen has pork bone and soy sauce soup, but recently many ramen shop provide salt or other flavor.

When you hand over ramen ticket, you can order your favorite of ramen. Noodle hardness (hard "katame" or soft"yawame", I love hard and I think 30% people order hard. 60% people order normal, others order soft.), taste strongness (strong"koime" or light"usume", I haven't seen who order light), amount of fat (much"oome" or few"sukuname", I want to order much or normal, but I usually order few for health) .

Because of the reason, many people say word like spell, for example "katamekoimeoome". 

With rice is ultimate style. Iekei ramen is provided quail egg and spinach and laver and roast pork fillet. I add egg. The soft boiled egg is soaked in taste and very delicious.

My girlfriend ordered ramen with green onion.

Various spice are equipped. I often use garlic and pepper.

The ramen was very delicious, rice and ramen soup knocked out me.

I love iekei ramen, but I eat once a month because the ramen has many sault and fat.

At last, I introduce popular movie about iekei ramen.

In this movie, professional angular RED中村(red-Nakamura) eats iekei ramen.

He recommended 硬め(katame means hard), 濃いめ (koime means strong taste), 多め(oome means much fat) as 早死に三段活用(hayajini-sandan-katsuyou, three-row conjugation to die early, conjugate is taught in junior high school and many people familiar with).

I think strong taste and much fat is not good for health, but strong noodle don't affect for health.

Even without, iekei ramen isn't good for health, but it promises deliciousness.

There is a Japnese saying(actually, the saying came from China) that 虎穴に入らずんば虎子を得ず(if you don't enter the tiger hole, you won't get tiger child).

To enter the iekei ramen shop noren(のれん is the cloth at the entrance of ramen shop) is like as tiger hole.