September 30, 2009
Oodles of noodles: Ramen has quietly become hip in Colorado
Erin and I have always been wistfully jealous of our friends in Los Angeles and San Francisco, for lots of reasons but not least the fact that they can eat killer ramen any night of the week. We have our fave ramen-yas in both San Francisco's Japantown and LA's Little Tokyo ("ya" means "shop"). There's also great ramen to be had on the East Coast -- I've slurped up wonderful noodles and steamy broth in New York City's funky little "Japantown" district on the lower East side
In Denver, for many years we had only one ramen-ya: Oshima Ramen, which was good (albeit pricey) when it opened about a decade ago, and has over the past few years become increasingly dirtier and greasier, and the ramen less special and more bland. As it went downhill, it gave us less and less reason to drive all the way across town for a sad bowl of noodles. Some people (including some food critics who don't know better) think it's "the real thing" but uh, sorry.
So Erin and I have made it a holy mission to find good ramen without flying to the coast, and some brave Japanese restaurants have met the challenge just in the past year or so.
The best we've found in the area is Okole Maluna, a Hawai'ian restaurant an hour north of Denver in the tiny eastern plains town of Windsor, whose owners serve a killer Saimin (Hawai'ian-style ramen). There's a very good, very authentic ramen served in a little take-out food court in Boulder called Bento Zanmai. Although it'a a bit unorthodox, the miso-ginger ramen served at the late Hisashi “Brian†Takimoto's East Colfax restaurant, Taki's, is very good. And now, even the fast-foody Kokoro is serving ramen (but at only one location, on 6th and Broadway, and only after 4 pm). We keep hearing about a Korean-run Japanese restaurant in Longmont that we haven't made it to. But as you can see, we're willing to drive for a good bowl of ramen, so we'll get there eventually.
Imagine our surprise, then, to find that there's been a veritable explosion of ramen happening right under our nose (is that a triple mixed metaphor?) -- and that it's not ramen made by Asians!
Ouch. I stand humbled... and embarrassed. I've changed my views on my long-held need to have Japanese words (especially food) pronounced correctly. I was such a purist about it that in the past I've even offered a 
Tak Toyoshima, creator of "Secret Asian Man," and Jeff Yang, one of the editors of the recently-published book "Secret Identities," sign copies at the 2009 AAJA Convention in Boston.
“Where are you from?†“So, where are YOU from?†“Hi, where’re you from?â€
I was in Boston a couple of weeks ago, at a convention where everyone asked each other “Where are you from?†and no one got offended. It cracked me up, hearing the question over and over.
Let me explain, for my non-Asian readers: Just about every Asian American I know – seriously – has been asked this question sometime (or many times) in their life. It’s often preceded by a variation of the statement, “You speak English so well… where are you from?†And once we answer “California,†or “Denver,†it’s often followed by a variation of “No, you know what I mean, where were you born?†Which might be followed, after we answer “California†or “New York City,†by “No, where’s your FAMILY from?â€
That’s when we can cut off the silliness and get to the point: “Are you asking what’s my ethnic heritage?â€
I just don’t see European Americans having this conversation, unless they have, say, a British or French or German accent. People assume Asian Americans are foreigners even if we "speak English so well" because of the way we look.
Anyway, I heard the “where are you from?†question dozens of times and we all answered eagerly without getting defensive. It’s because the ones asking were also AAPI, and we really did want to know where each other was from. We were at the annual convention of the 
Pho has evolved over the years, from its invention in 1920s Hanoi to its popularity in the U.S. today. When the soup, with rice noodles and meats served in a hearty broth, first arrived in the stateside, the restaurants catered to mostly Vietnamese diners, like an exclusive club. As non-Vietnamese discovered pho, the restaurants became more inviting, and the diners more diverse.
When we first started going to pho restaurants, we weren't always treated very warmly, because we were outsiders -- clearly not Vietnamese. These days, pho restaurants have evolved. We're welcomed as regulars at our favorite neighborhood pho spot, 
Since the fastest-growing population in the United States is mixed-race and we live in an increasingly global and multicultural world, it makes perfect sense that a restaurant like 
Consumer culture in Japan is where you'll see the collision of Asian and American tastes. More than in the U.S., Japan is where East mashes West. You can get shrimp Filet-o-Fish sandwiches at McDonald's, or pizza with seaweed or squid, and spaghetti with salty plum sauce.
So I supposes I shouldn't be dismayed at the new Coca-Cola flavor, Green Tea Coke. After all, here in the states there seems to be a growiing market for almost anything with green tea added, from soap and shampoos to Lipton Ice Tea and Starbucks' Matcha Latte.
But Coke with green tea?
I'm not much of a Coke fan (Pepsi's the choice if I have a cola at all), so I don't care that much about the purity of the soft drink. But it seems heresy to put green tea into the syrupy sweetness. Can you even taste the subtle bitterness?
This fits right in with conversations I've had recently with (non-Asian) co-workers about Lipton's green tea flavored ice tea. I pointed out that Asians don't sweeten their tea.