TOKYO — Customers with Prada handbags and Gucci sunglasses sometimes stand in line for hours and gaze hungrily at a television outside the restaurant door, feasting their eyes on the delicacy that awaits: a bowl of noodles.
The humble noodle — known in Japan as “ramen” — has long been better known as a staple of construction workers and penny-pinching students than as a favorite of the chic.
But in a push to win over a new clientele, Japanese noodles are going upscale with special pork and organic vegetables served in eateries with fetching dark-wood interiors and soft lighting.
One company even came up with a shocker for anyone who has slurped down a calorie-packed bowl of noodles: diet ramen made from seaweed extracts. It weighs in at a meager eight calories.
“The ’stylish ramen’ stores have really boomed,” said Masahiko Ichiyanagi, who writes a “ramen column” for a popular weekly magazine, Tokyo 1Week. “The result is that it’s now recognized as a legitimate leisure activity.”
The trend reaches extremes at Shiodome Ramen, a spanking new cluster of steel-and-glass towers next to — but a world away from — the decidedly lowbrow Shimbashi district.
The shop aims to create a splash. Nippon Television Network Corp. began a highly publicized nationwide contest in 2002 to seek out the country’s best ramen cook, and put the winner, Konosuke Takewaka, in charge of the restaurant on its premises.
The exposure brought in the crowds. Customers sometimes waited in line four hours when the restaurant opened Aug. 1. Now, waits of more than an hour are still common.
Those with endurance are rewarded. Mr. Takewaka strains the noodles by whipping an acorn-shaped sieve through the air in a dramatic figure eight, splashing scalding water against a window between the kitchen and the restaurant and drawing gasps from startled diners.
“I went through thousands of trials to make the soup we serve today,” he said.
The broth gets its flavor from pork, beef and chicken stock, squid legs and dried fish, he said. The restaurant, which serves 800 bowls a day starting at $7.30, closes when it runs out of its pungent noodle soup.
According to popular lore, ramen was introduced by Chinese immigrants early in the last century. Taking root in major port cities such as Yokohama, it soon spread across the country and assumed regional variations. Now it is as Japanese as tofu or miso soup.
In Japan, ramen shops have long been dingy joints, their counters crowded with chopsticks, seasonings and self-service water jugs.
The fare until now has been straightforward: noodles in a salty broth, topped with a few slices of pork, chopped green onions and strips of seaweed. Standard flavors are salt, soy sauce and miso bean paste.
The popularity translates into earnings. Some 200,000 ramen shops are in Japan, where customers slurp down about $6.36 billion worth of noodles annually.
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