![]() In the beginning, he didn’t think too hard about what he was doing. The place had been a ramen shop run by an elderly couple, and Terada rented it out, pots and all. He worked at a ramen shop in the Kanazawa central wholesale market for about five years, learned from a famous ramen shop in Tokyo, and happened to meet the then tenants of his current location. Terada, a native of Hakusan City, Ishikawa Prefecture, worked in many restaurants in his youth, but “ramen shops were the best fit,” he says. Despite the odds, Terada decided to have a go at making a living from ramen in the city. However, such a narrow range of recommendations just goes to show how few other ramen shops exist in Kanazawa. Ishikawa Prefecture does have a long-established chain of popular ramen restaurants called “8-ban Ramen,” and in fact the chain is so well known locally that whenever I asked locals about ramen shops on my business trips to Kanazawa, its name always came up. ![]() This was partly because there were not many ramen shops in Kanazawa. He began to see crowds of tourists and was even interviewed by a Taiwanese TV station. That all changed with the opening of the Hokuriku Shinkansen in March 2015, three years after Terada opened his shop. As is often the case for prefectural capitals in Japan, residents preferred to go to large shopping malls in the suburbs, and the streets around Kanazawa Station were mostly quiet. Nowadays, the station’s neighborhood is prime real estate, but at the time there were not many eateries nearby. “People around me were all against opening the shop here, saying, ‘Who’s going to come to the Kanazawa Station area?’” he recalls. Terada opened the shop in March 2012, when he was 28 years old. “I knew the Shinkansen was coming to Kanazawa, but I never expected so many customers,” Terada said. Garlic, right, and pepper sit on the counter. Hokuriku Shinkansen freights in customers The akamiso version is made with shrimp-flavored chili oil and sansho (Japanese pepper) for an aromatic and spicy taste, while the kuromiso iteration is rich in flavor. Miso, the most popular, is well-balanced and incorporates ginger, yuzu and aonori. The basic miso soup is the same for all the shop’s ramen, but the miso, kuromiso and akamiso ramens each have their own unique flavor. He’ll make detailed adjustments depending on the day, adding more dried fish, for example, on sunny days. When it rains, he says, that’s when you can make a good soup. The miso is combined with a basic soup made daily from pork genkotsu (knee joints) - which help thicken the soup - chicken bones, momiji (chicken feet), kombu (kelp), dried fish, shiitake mushrooms and other ingredients. ![]() To be sure, Hokkaido is awash in outstanding ramen. You’ve really got to have miso from regions where ramen culture is thriving,” he says. “Local miso is too flavorful and doesn’t go well with ramen. Instead of using local miso, Terada uses miso from Hokkaido as well as Nagano. There are also rice bowl options to go with the ramen. The shop is decorated with many tiger-related pictures and ornaments due to the similar pronunciation for tiger and the shop’s name. The shop offers its own special ju-mi (ten spices) instead of shichi-mi (seven spices). After much deliberation, I ordered the kuromiso ramen, which gets its dark coloring from squid ink. The core of the menu consists of three kinds of ramen: miso, kuromiso (black miso) and akamiso (red miso), each priced at ¥850 (Prices have been revised and are now ¥980). ![]() There is no ticket machine in the shop customers order from a menu on the counter. And indeed, I already felt a little less guilty. The owner, Yushi Terada, 38, smiled as he came out to the counter and said, “I thought I would try to reduce the spike in blood sugar levels and ease the guilt felt when eating ramen, even if only a little.” Terada further explained, “I don’t know how effective it actually is, but we make it with vegetables and fruits such as apples, carrots and tomatoes.” The drink went down easy, fresh and delicious. The first thing that surprised me when I sat down at the counter was the homemade vegetable juice served. If you come around noon, you’ll likely find yourself waiting in line. I arrived at 3:00 p.m., the end of the lunch hour, to find that there were still customers at the restaurant’s 13-seat counter, including a woman and some couples. The shop is a convenient five-minute walk from the gate. The east exit of Kanazawa Station is marked by the Tsuzumi-mon Gate, an impressive wooden structure inspired by the tsuzumi drum of the Noh stage. The Tsuzumi-mon Gate, which towers over the east exit of Kanazawa Station, is internationally renowned.
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