Imagine living somewhere where the word "car" meant only a cheap subcompact vehicle, because no one sold or drove anything better. What would people think when they saw a Mercedes? A Porsche? Or an SUV? Believe it or not, there's a word in the American vocabulary that's equally under-appreciated: "ramen." In the United States, ramen is virtually synonymous with "instant noodles," invented in Japan in 1958 as a way to let anyone with hot water have quick access to cheap noodle soup. And yes, the Japanese love them, too: instant noodles once topped a survey here as the
most important Japanese invention of the century, and they even have their own museum in Osaka. But just outside of Tokyo, there's also a 15-year-old museum called the Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum - that's the correct spelling - and it's dedicated to the real thing: the hot, freshly made bowls of noodle soup that inspired the low-end versions. These are entree-sized soups, featuring noodles that contrast in their medium thickness and/or flavors to Japan's fat, starchy udon and thin, buckwheat-flavored soba.