Ramen madness in Paris

(Paris) In Paris, long queues form in front of establishments that serve ramen, the famous Japanese noodle soup, to the delight of all students, executives and tourists.

The restaurants offering this dish, hearty, comforting and inexpensive, arouse a craze comparable to the “bouillons”, these inexpensive typically Parisian bistros, which serve simple cuisine based on fresh products.

Near the Grands Boulevards, iSSHIN Ramen, where many young people gather every evening, opened in place of an establishment specializing in burgers, once fashionable, then deserted.

Not far, near the Louvre, Kodawari Tsukiji has set up a QR code system: you scan it to reserve a place then you can go for a walk while waiting for it to become available, sometimes the wait on weekends lasts a hour and a half.

“Waiting to eat is part of Japanese culture. The French have started to find the queues interesting, which they couldn’t stand before,” laughs Japanese Reiko Mori, who has lived in Paris for 20 years and is in charge of a communication in gastronomy.

“There is a very addictive. There is a whole culture that people are discovering and, thanks to the internet, ramen is spreading all over the world”, explains Jean-Baptiste Meusnier, former fighter pilot and founder of Kodawari, where you eat in the middle of the bins. of fish.

One hundred and fifty ingredients

Frenchman Sedrik Allani opened Neko Ramen in 2020, after training in Japan: “I wanted a good and inexpensive Japanese restaurant like you find in Tokyo,” he told AFP.

Despite the apparent simplicity of ramen, it is a complex dish that invites “a lot of creativity”.

“I have three ramen that are really different from each other. There are 150 ingredients in a ramen that costs 9.50 euros ($14),” he says.

The “secret” is the “tare”, the seasoning that you put at the bottom of the plate before pouring the broth and adding the noodles, toppings (eggs, marinated chicken…) and flavored oil (with vegetables, prawns, black sesame, burnt garlic…).

In the basic versions, it is soy sauce, and a mixture of ingredients that macerate for a long time to obtain a more sophisticated taste. Sedrik Allani takes a month to prepare it.

In Japan, there are vintage ‘tares’, while some ramen chefs are magazine cover stars who are asked for autographs on the street, he marvels.

“It’s a ‘fast-food’ way of eating healthily,” summed up French starred chef Guy Savoy for AFP. He himself says he alternates between gourmet meals and ramen when he travels.

Its four Supu Ramen opened in Paris before COVID-19 have all closed. “I had too much of a lead,” he said.

manga

Traditionally made with pork broth, ramen is of Chinese origin. It was “Japaneseized” with soy sauce and became extremely popular after World War II for its nutritious side.

In Paris, as in other European capitals where young chefs have succumbed to the temptation of ramen, it is revisited to attract customers who do not eat pork. Jean-Baptiste Meusnier thus makes fish broths.

Sedrik Allani, for his part, adapts the temperature of his ramen to the palate of the French, who do not like hot soups like in Asia.

Apart from its attractive price, ramen is also an emblematic outlet for manga lovers as this dish is represented there. Some even go there in disguise.

“When I was a child, it was very complicated to have access to manga. Now you just have to pay 5 to 10 euros for Netflix and have access to an incredible catalog”, which has made Japanese pop culture “accessible”, concludes Sedrik Allani.