At 50, Ivan Orkin appears to have pulled off a chain of unprecedented feats.
He is the first American brave (or foolish) enough to open his own ramen shop in Tokyo. (He now has two.)
He is the first chef to publish a cookbook/memoir, “Ivan Ramen,” in the United States before even opening a restaurant here.
And last week, he may have become the first chef in Manhattan to intercept a bathroom-bound customer and order her back to her seat.
“She got up right after the ramen hit the table!” he said in self-defense, citing the first commandment of ramen: It must be eaten while still volcanically hot.
With the opening of Ivan Ramen Slurp Shop in Hell’s Kitchen last month, Mr. Orkin became a New York restaurateur, a title 20 years in the making. A long stainless-steel counter in his restaurant is lined on one side with customers, and on the other with ramen ingredients: slow-cooked pork belly, scallions, soft-cooked eggs, chicken broth, dashi or seaweed broth, chicken fat, pork fat and his signature rye noodles.
He is having a hard time making peace with those noodles. “I can’t believe I’m not making my own,” he said ruefully. “That was the first thing I got right in Tokyo.” Instead, they are made for him at Sun Noodle in Teterboro, N.J., a supplier to preferred ramen destinations like Momofuku Noodle Bar, Ramen Yebisu and Ganso.
These restaurants are part of a greater New York ramen boom: Traditional purveyors like Ippudo and Totto Ramen are expanding, and mavericks like Mr. Orkin and Yuji Haraguchi of Yuji Ramen are reinventing the bowl. “We are very chef-driven,” said Kenshiro Uki, Sun Noodle’s East Coast manager. The company custom-makes more than 100 variations on ramen: thick and thin, flat and round, wavy and straight, white, yellow and even black, colored with charred bamboo leaf.
It is not hands-on enough for Mr. Orkin, but for now, he doesn’t have the time. His long-chaotic life as a chef has ordered itself around one dish, ramen, and he is racing to build the restaurants that will house his vision. That is not necessarily the most “authentic” ramen, but the ramen of his own Japanese-American-Jewish-chef dreams: a soup with the right balance of pork, chicken, smoked fish, soy and salt; noodles with the ideal combination of chew and give; toppings that set it off instead of overwhelming it. The recipe, as published in “Ivan Ramen,” is 36 pages long.
“I have officially become one of the ramen geeks,” he said.
In Tokyo (and in Japanophile clusters in the United States), ramen is much more than noodles in a rich, meaty broth. Like pizza and burgers in the United States, it has changed from fast food to a canvas of culinary ideas. “Kodawari” ramen is taken seriously and has the same buzzwords as “artisanal” here: free range, long cooked, slow raised, small batch. Ramen is not an ancient dish like sashimi or tofu. While there are vegetarian and seafood versions, the basic soup is rich with fat and meat — which was banned in Japan from approximately the seventh century to the 17th, according to Buddhist edicts.
But it has been popular for long enough to become a national obsession. Ramen otaku — geeks — compete on quiz shows, crowd-source maps and wait hours to try a place with a new twist: whole-grain noodles, for example, or especially thick slices of pork belly. Some ramen shops are famous for their garlicky broths; others for mind-blowing chile heat or intense sesame flavor; others for their strict policies of no talking or no perfume.
He is the first American brave (or foolish) enough to open his own ramen shop in Tokyo. (He now has two.)
He is the first chef to publish a cookbook/memoir, “Ivan Ramen,” in the United States before even opening a restaurant here.
And last week, he may have become the first chef in Manhattan to intercept a bathroom-bound customer and order her back to her seat.“She got up right after the ramen hit the table!” he said in self-defense, citing the first commandment of ramen: It must be eaten while still volcanically hot.
With the opening of Ivan Ramen Slurp Shop in Hell’s Kitchen last month, Mr. Orkin became a New York restaurateur, a title 20 years in the making. A long stainless-steel counter in his restaurant is lined on one side with customers, and on the other with ramen ingredients: slow-cooked pork belly, scallions, soft-cooked eggs, chicken broth, dashi or seaweed broth, chicken fat, pork fat and his signature rye noodles.
He is having a hard time making peace with those noodles. “I can’t believe I’m not making my own,” he said ruefully. “That was the first thing I got right in Tokyo.” Instead, they are made for him at Sun Noodle in Teterboro, N.J., a supplier to preferred ramen destinations like Momofuku Noodle Bar, Ramen Yebisu and Ganso.
These restaurants are part of a greater New York ramen boom: Traditional purveyors like Ippudo and Totto Ramen are expanding, and mavericks like Mr. Orkin and Yuji Haraguchi of Yuji Ramen are reinventing the bowl. “We are very chef-driven,” said Kenshiro Uki, Sun Noodle’s East Coast manager. The company custom-makes more than 100 variations on ramen: thick and thin, flat and round, wavy and straight, white, yellow and even black, colored with charred bamboo leaf.
It is not hands-on enough for Mr. Orkin, but for now, he doesn’t have the time. His long-chaotic life as a chef has ordered itself around one dish, ramen, and he is racing to build the restaurants that will house his vision. That is not necessarily the most “authentic” ramen, but the ramen of his own Japanese-American-Jewish-chef dreams: a soup with the right balance of pork, chicken, smoked fish, soy and salt; noodles with the ideal combination of chew and give; toppings that set it off instead of overwhelming it. The recipe, as published in “Ivan Ramen,” is 36 pages long.
“I have officially become one of the ramen geeks,” he said.
In Tokyo (and in Japanophile clusters in the United States), ramen is much more than noodles in a rich, meaty broth. Like pizza and burgers in the United States, it has changed from fast food to a canvas of culinary ideas. “Kodawari” ramen is taken seriously and has the same buzzwords as “artisanal” here: free range, long cooked, slow raised, small batch. Ramen is not an ancient dish like sashimi or tofu. While there are vegetarian and seafood versions, the basic soup is rich with fat and meat — which was banned in Japan from approximately the seventh century to the 17th, according to Buddhist edicts.
But it has been popular for long enough to become a national obsession. Ramen otaku — geeks — compete on quiz shows, crowd-source maps and wait hours to try a place with a new twist: whole-grain noodles, for example, or especially thick slices of pork belly. Some ramen shops are famous for their garlicky broths; others for mind-blowing chile heat or intense sesame flavor; others for their strict policies of no talking or no perfume.
by Julia Moskin, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Brent Herrig
