That’s true in my experience, but Ramen in Japan is actually considerably better. The only good Ramen I ever had in Europe was in Düsseldorf but the owner imports pork from Japan.

I don't think this is unique to Ramen at all. Burgers should not cost $20-30 for some limp smooshed beef, a burrito should also not be $15-20, and tacos should sure as hell not be $3-5 per tiny taco. It's all bullshit; none of that food is worth that money. But... I suspect it costs that much because people pay that much, and because the cost of every other aspect of service puts pressure on the restaurants to try to push the ceiling of what it's worth.

As a ramen lover, I try to take advantage of value oriented cheaper pricing when it's available.

As a relatively tall active man, I need to pregame restaurants with something more cost effective, and even still need to order 1.5 to 2x what everyone else does in order to feel satiated. (~82kg, 192cm)

At least ramen takes some time to eat. When I go into a standard burger place nowadays, it takes me literally 20 seconds sometimes to finish a $20+ burger, and then I'm just sitting there waiting for people to delicately nibble their way through what is a deeply overrated culinary experience, in many cases. Like c'mon, give me some damn food, I'll go get it myself.

> But for the price that it is usually sold at in western cities

What are those prices specifically? In Barcelona (one of those western cities, imo) at a good ramen place, you get Gyozas for ~5 EUR, and a nice ramen for ~12-14 EUR, add a drink and you end up with ~20 EUR per person, which strikes me as relatively affordable for eating out, but maybe the metropolitan prices have biased me over time. Is this expensive/cheap compared to the other cities you've tried ramen in?

> BTW, you can also replicate the form factor using western cooking ingredients/traditions and it still works pretty well.

Isn't that just a stew at that point? How is it still ramen if you switch out all the ingredients and the broth that makes ramen ramen?

It's almost like people have different taste in food!

It's also kind of a wild take "I have nearly zero experience in <thing from other culture> and I don't understand why people from that culture enjoy it"

Re price and prep

First, it's quite difficult to make. Try it, lol.. but by your admission you haven't had anything decent.

Second - in Japan, Ramen is mostly pretty cheap, a lot of places have a vending machine where you pay for a bowl and get a ticket with an order number. It's really not a fancy or pricey experience unless you're somewhere upmarket.

Same as always, because people upvote it, probably it's interesting to a bunch of people.

> What to Submit - On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

The site looks good on mobile.

> No cookies. No tips. No JavaScript. Just ramen.

I cannot help but wonder if Claude wrote this copy. Not that there would be anything wrong with that, I am just curious.

What’s wrong with appreciating beautiful food?

It's because it's food lol

I prefer that over yet another AI blog post

Kanada-Ya is a chain with at least 5 locations in London, and while they're fairly good, they're still somewhat focused on Deliveroo-type transactions.

It remains quite different from a genuine ramen shop in Japan.