A Tale of Two Ramens

Ramen, one of the tastiest staples of the Japanese diet can be difficult to enjoy as a vegan, but if you look in the right place you can find tasty, guilt-free ramen in Japan and closer to home. I'd like to share two ramen experiences I've had in the past few weeks, one in Japan and one back home in DC.

Typically in Japan a ramen shop is not a friendly place for vegans to eat. Most ramen is heavy on animals, not only using pork and egg as a topping, but having thick, meat-based broth. Usually it's fruitless to ask for veggie broth and just noodles, because most places won't have non-meat broth on hand and they will have a hard time understanding why you're even asking for just water and noodles. That's why the one vegan restaurant I was looking forward to visiting the most in Japan was a specialty vegan ramen shop in Tokyo station, T's Tan Tan.

T's Tan Tan signs about the virtues of veganism

The entrance to T's near the Keiyo Street shopping section in Tokyo station

T's Tan Tan has a small storefront in a busy section of Tokyo station. It mainly targets commuters who aren't necessarily vegetarians, but want to eat a quick, healthy lunch. The menu has a variety of soup dishes and other Japanese favorites like vegan curry and karaage (fried chicken). I went straight for my favorite, spicy ramen, the T's shio tan tan.

T's spicy shio tan tan

The ramen was delicious. From the picture, you can see that the presentation was quite delicate and appetizing. The dish consisted of ramen noodles in a spicy sesame broth topped with bean sprouts and some shredded radish. The composition was true to the traditional Japanese form, very simple, heavy on noodles with a few toppings to compliment the main flavors coming from the thick, oily, almost greasy broth. Small pieces of vegan ground 'beef' took the dish to the next level. The soup really filled me up, and I'm still thinking about the delicious flavors. It only costs 850 yen, or roughly $8.50. 

Vegetable shio ramen from Daikaya

Coming back to the U.S., one of the first meals Leah and I ate together was veggie ramen at Daikaya in DC's Chinatown. Daikaya is a trendy spot that serves Hokkaido-inspired ramen for $12.75 (or more) a bowl to a packed restaurant of DC 20-somethings, with hip-hop from the 2000's blaring from the speakers. The veggie ramen bends from tradition by letting the toppings shine as the stars of the dish with the broth and noodles as the backdrop. Daikaya grills its veggies, which include onions, two types of mushrooms, scallions, and carrots, before adding them to the soup. The grilled flavor is unique and I think quite tasty to the American palette. The broth comes through as a little less full bodied despite its thickness, and it's slightly too salty, lacking in comparison to good vegan broths like that of Pho 14. However, the toppings really stand out to make this a good dish.

Daikaya's ramen isn't really comparable to T's Tan Tan. The restaurants are thousands of miles apart geographically and so are the experiences they offer. Though different, I can find positives in both and somehow they both work for me, as does getting creative and making your own ramen soup at home.