I’m not about to attempt a potted history but I think that we might be approaching some kind of inflection point when it comes to noodles. I’m talking about instant noodles. Ramen (and Korean ramyun in particular) now seems to rule over certain corners of the internet because the kids have ‘discovered’ them, not in the course of feeding themselves, but in their feeds. Our ongoing project to replace human curiosity and discovery with an infernally closed loop of algorithmic prediction means that food trends now seem to be matters of automatic imposition. If you like this then you may also like – to submit to a life of perpetual insatiability. Welcome to the age of noodle influencers, of ramen-maxxing. That’s the first and only time that I will use that odious suffix.
We have engineered a generation defined by poor attention spans (you should have listened to your mothers when they told you that this stuff would rot your brains) and a predilection for the infernally spicy Buldak stuff. Drury Street’s Asia Market, never slow to see which ways the revenue streams flow now has a dedicated ramen-room – perhaps identifying that the customer base is terminally online and fearful of eye-contact with other bi-peds IRL. It’s a safe space for furtive slurpers. Maybe I should be grateful to the kids for bringing the instant noodle scene above ground – their ingestion once carried an attendant shame comparable to onanism. Open enjoyment was once confined to dorm-rooms and prison-cells. In the joint (I’m told) a pack of Nissin Black-Garlic Tonkotsu will buy you five smokes.
For me – Noodles have always carried with them a flavour of distinctly dystopian futurism. Watching Deckard (in Ridley Scott’s 1982 masterpiece Bladerunner) slurping from a bowl at a street-side counter, rain-slicked in the neon night, had a profound effect upon me as a kid. I would eat Super Noodles in the house of my kindly next-door neighbour from (what I now understand to be) a ceramic plant-pot holder and imagine a future career tracking down and retiring skin-jobs. Those were the days but the future is now.
Situated on an unlovely stretch of Aungier St this Super Asia (it is a thriving chain with outlets in locations as varied as Navan and Athlone) used to be the kind of convenience store that steadfastly refused to stock aluminium foil but has now been re-purposed as a reasonably well-provisioned Asian store, and I suppose, cafeteria? It’s like Asia Market but without the scenesters, and TV-show tie-in. Some garden furniture is scattered around the front of the shop. The doors rarely close, so you really get to feel as if you’re dining in the midst of the traffic. It’s an actively unpleasant place to consume anything but not without its charms. The menu seems to consist of anything that people who socialise within video-games can conceive of.
There are multiple tyrannies of choice. We start with the unconvincingly named ‘Snack for Life’ list. It’s like referring to a boozer as a hydration-station. The Ramen Pillow resembles a Pop-Tart constructed of latex and filled with noodles. It is described as ‘Cheese and Spicy’ and is both. Quite unpleasant but curiously moreish. There are many kinds of dumplings. The Korean Rice Cakes (Topokki) have a pleasing bounce and a sauce with some sweetness and heat. The Char Siu Steamed Buns are quite serviceable too.
Corn-Dogs feature strongly and have a sub-menu of their own. These battered wieners-on-a-stick represent a rare case of cultural re-appropriation. Born of the food stalls of the aw-shucks State-Fairs of the American Mid-West, they migrated East where Asians (notably South Koreans and Japanese) had their way with them before sending them back where they came from. They returned home changed — coated in anything that could reasonably be expected to adhere — cornflakes, fries, corn-snacks, skittles, thorns, nail-clippings and of course dried noodles. The choice is yours!
The ones here are exactly as they should be. That’s not an endorsement. I took one for the team. Actual nutrition is available in the form of customisable Bibimbap bowls. Another menu. You choose your rice – short-grain, brown or black and then go hog-wild with your Protein (I don’t know what Pork Floss is but it sounds like a drag name), and other toppings. €10.50 buys you four toppings and an egg. Choose wisely and you’ve got a perfectly good lunch. Involve the kimchi. For two bucks less you can use the same constituents to build a Sushi Burrito. Insert shrug emoji.
But I’m burying the lede here, as they say in American journalism. To quote Prince’s immortal line from U Got The Look – ‘let’s get to ramen’. For €2.50 the nice young man behind the counter will give you a special bowl that empowers you to browse the noodle aisle, select your slippery carb of choice and prepare it in house! You scan a QR code, place your bowl within the device that looks a little like a replicator from Star Trek and simply push the button. I don’t really understand why this pleased me so greatly but I may return alone to repeat the process.
It has also occurred to me subsequently that a kettle might perform the same function but where’s the dystopian Sci-fi in that? I have patently never ‘grown out of’ these packaged delights but it would be fair to say that my first experience of properly prepared ‘non-instant’ Ramen offered some context. That was in 2004 on the first pilgrimage to New York City with my current wife. Chef Dave Chang had just opened in a pokey, narrow strip of a room on First Ave. Elbow to elbow at that counter, on that night, amid the plumes of porcine steam, many of us graduated to the real deal, in an instant.
The Ramen Bar first opened in 2016 on South William Street and signalled their seriousness by making their own noodles on a machine imported from Kagawa. They educated Dubliners in the ways of Tonkotsu, Shio and Shoyu broths and have rightly developed a loyal following.
I was gratified when they opened a second (I believe there was a take-out only spot off Baggot St) restaurant in Temple Bar. The Tonkotsu Original is as good as it’s ever been and I rate the Ichiraku (with a soy-based broth too.) The Yakitori and Karaage are both solid and the Yaki Nasu (fried Aubergine with Sesame Miso) is top drawer.
I’m always yammering on about restaurants that you ‘can use’ – this is one such. It’s open all day (from 10.30am), you can walk in any time and offers great value at a time when that can be thin on the ground. It deserves to thrive.
If you must resort to the other stuff though – please use instant noodles only as part of a balanced diet.
Words: Conor Stevens
Photographs: Killian Broderick
70 Aungier St, D2
6 Crow St, D2
