Author: tourist_yp6g7u

TOKYO (AP) — Spicy, steaming, slurpy ramen might be everyone’s favorite Japanese food.

In Tokyo, long lines circle around blocks, and waiting an hour for your ramen is normal. What awaits might be just a dive, but a hot bowl of ramen rarely fails to hit the spot.

Often cooked right before your eyes behind dingy counters, the noodle dish starts here at around 1,000 yen ($6.50), and comes in various flavors and local versions. There’s salty, soy-based “shoyu” or “miso” paste. Perhaps it’s red-hot spicy with a dash of chili. Sometimes there’s no soup at all but a sauce to dip the noodles in.

The curly noodles are lighter than the darker buckwheat “soba,” or “udon,” which are also usually flatter or thicker.GLOBAL SUCCESS

Ramen has also surged in popularity in the U.S., South Korea and other countries. Retail sales in the United States have risen 72% since 2000, according to NielsenIQ, a sales tracker. In the 52 weeks ending April 13, Americans bought more than $1.6 billion worth of ramen.

In restaurants, versions beyond the traditional soup are appearing, said Technomic, a research and consulting company for the restaurant industry. Del Taco, a Mexican chain, recently introduced Shredded Beef Birria Ramen, for example.

Packaged ramen that’s easily cooked in hot water at home is called instant noodles; it’s precooked and then dried. The story of how Momofuku Ando invented instant ramen in a backyard shed in 1958, when food was still scarce, is the stuff of legend in Japan. He went on to found the food giant Nissin Foods.

Although convenient, instant noodles aren’t the same as the ramen served at restaurants.THE EXPERIENCE

Some Japanese frequent ramen shops twice or three times a week. They emerge, dripping with sweat, smacking their lips.

“I’m probably a talking bowl of ramen,” says Frank Striegl as he leads a dozen American tourists through the back alleys of Tokyo’s funky Shibuya district on what he calls “the ultimate ramen experience.”

The crowd is led behind a shabby doorway, sometimes down narrow stairs, to a dim-lit table where ramen gets served in tiny bowls, practically the size of a latte cup, or about a quarter of a regular ramen bowl. That’s so guests have enough room in their tummies to try out six different kinds of ramen, two at each spot during the tour.

One restaurant, Shinbusakiya, offers “Hokkaido classics” from the northernmost main island, while another, Nagi, offers “Fukuoka fusion,” from the southern main island of Kyushu. It includes a green ramen, similar to pasta al pesto. Syuuichi, which means “once a week,” features curry-flavored ramen.

“It’s not just, of course, about eating delicious ramen, but also learning about it,” said Striegl, a Filipino American who grew up in Tokyo. He calls ramen “people’s food.”

“A lot of countries around the world have their version of ramen in a way,” he said. “So I think because of that, it’s a dish that’s easy to understand. It’s a dish that’s easy to get behind.”

While the tour participants were relishing their noodles, Striegl outlined a brief history of ramen: Its roots date back to the samurai era, when a shogun took a fancy to Chinese noodles, setting off the localizing journey for ramen that continues today.

Katie Sell, a graduate student on Striegl’s tour, called ramen “a kind of comfort food, especially in the winter. Get a group of friends, go have some ramen and just enjoy it.”

Kavi Patel, an engineer from New Jersey, said he was glad he included the humble ramen on his tour of Japan, along with more established attractions like the ancient capital of Kyoto and the deer park in Nara. “I’m having good fun,” he said.ADJUSTING TO CHANGE

While ramen has never been more popular in Japan, ramen places have struggled because of the pandemic, the weakening Japanese yen, and the higher cost of wheat imports and energy, according to a study by Tokyo Shoko Research.

One beneficiary of the pandemic is a home delivery service for frozen, professionally cooked ramen. Called takumen.com, it boasts some 500,000 subscribers in Japan.

Another Tokyo operation, Gourmet Innovation, has signed on 250 of the country’s top ramen joints to sell packaged versions of their soup, noodles and toppings, to be heated up in boiling water and served at home.

Co-founder and executive Kenichi Nomaguchi, who hopes to expand his business overseas, says ramen and animation are Japan’s most successful exports.

Why ramen? Unlike pasta or curry, ramen is difficult to replicate at home, he said, Making it from scratch involves hours of cooking stock, with pork, beef or chicken, various fish or bonito flakes, and “kombu” kelp. Some stock uses oysters.LOTS OF VARIETY

Besides the different soup stocks and flavors, onions, grated garlic, ginger or sesame oil can be added for extra punch. Toppings can include bean sprouts, barbecued pork, boiled or raw eggs, seaweed, fermented bamboo shoots called “menma,” chopped green onions, cooked cabbage, snow peas or corn.

Some insist a bowl of ramen is not complete without a slice of narutomaki, a whitefish cake with a pink spiral pattern.

Unusual varieties include coffee ramen and ramen topped with ice cream or pineapple.

Jiro-style ramen, named for a legendary restaurant in Tokyo, features mounds of vegetable toppings, huge steak-like barbecued pork and pungent, grated garlic seeped in a fatty pork-based stock.

“Impact is important. So the pork has to be big so it’s truly memorable,” said Kota Kobayashi, who serves Jiro-style ramen at his chain, “Ore No Ikiru Michi,” which translates to, “The way I live my life.”

Kobayashi is a former professional baseball player at the Yokohama Bay Stars, and played with the minor league Cleveland Guardians before switching to his ramen business.

“When I quit baseball, I chose ramen as my way of life,” he said with a smile.

He can wax philosophical about ramen. One cultural difference he has observed is that Americans tend to leave the noodles and drink all the soup, while the Japanese mostly do the opposite.

And taste is only part of what makes good ramen. One must also offer entertainment, Kobayashi said.

At his restaurants, the chopsticks are tucked in a box on a shelf, so first-time visitors ask where they are. Repeat customers go straight to that box. Kobayashi calls out, “Welcome back,” making the customers feel a connection, even if he doesn’t remember a thing about them.

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Dee-Ann Durbin contributed to this story from Detroit.

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Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

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The Biden administration issued final rules Wednesday to require airlines to automatically issue cash refunds for things like delayed flights and to better disclose fees for baggage or canceling a reservation.

The Transportation Department said airlines will be required to provide automatic cash refunds within a few days for canceled flights and “significant” delays.

Under current regulations, airlines decide how long a delay must last before triggering refunds. The administration is removing that wiggle room by defining a significant delay as lasting at least three hours for domestic flights and six hours for international ones.

Airlines still will be allowed to offer another flight or a travel credit instead, but consumers can reject the offer.

The rule will also apply to refunds of checked-bag fees if the bag isn’t delivered within 12 hours for domestic flights or 15 to 30 hours for international flights. And it will apply to fees for things such as seat selection or an internet connection if the airline fails to provide the service.

Complaints about refunds skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, as airlines canceled flights and, even when they didn’t, many people didn’t feel safe sharing a plane cabin with other passengers.

Airlines for America, a trade group for large U.S. carriers, noted that refund complaints to the Transportation Department have fallen sharply since mid-2020. A spokesperson for the group said airlines “offer a range of options — including fully refundable fares — to increase accessibility to air travel and to help customers make ticket selections that best fit their needs.”

The group said the 11 largest U.S. airlines issued $43 billion in customer refunds from 2020 through 2023.

The Transportation Department issued a separate rule requiring airlines and ticket agents to disclose upfront what they charge for checked and carry-on bags and canceling or changing a reservation. On airline websites, the fees must be shown the first time customers see a price and schedule.

The rule will also oblige airlines to tell passengers they have a guaranteed seat they are not required to pay extra for, although it does not bar airlines from charging people to choose specific seats. Many airlines now charge extra for certain spots, including exit-row seats and those near the front of the cabin.

The agency said the rule will save consumers more than $500 million a year.

Airlines for America said its members “offer transparency and vast choice to consumers” from their first search.

The new rules will take effect over the next two years. They are part of a broad administration attack on what President Joe Biden calls “junk fees.” Last week, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced that his department will let state officials in 15 states help enforce federal airline consumer protection laws.

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Months before they pitched their tents on Columbia University’s main lawn, inspiring a wave of protest encampments at college campuses nationwide, a small group of pro-Palestinian student activists met privately to sketch out the logistical details of a round-the-clock occupation.

In hours of planning sessions, they discussed communications strategies and their willingness to risk arrest, along with the more prosaic questions of bathroom access and trash removal. Then, after scouring online retailers and Craigslist for the most affordable options, they ordered the tents.

“There’s been a lot of work, a lot of meetings that went into it, and when we finally pulled it off, we had no idea how it would go,” said Columbia graduate student Elea Sun. “I don’t think anyone imagined it would take off like it did.”

Inspired by the protests at Columbia, hundreds of students have set up protest encampments on at least a dozen other college campuses across the country to protest lsrael’s actions in the war with Hamas. Among other demands, they are calling for their schools to cut financial ties with Israel and the companies supporting the conflict. The protests come as universities are winding up the spring semester and preparing for graduation ceremonies.

Those involved with the Columbia protest, also known as the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” describe their organizing efforts as both meticulously planned and heavily improvised. They say the university’s aggressive tactics to quell the movement have only lent it more momentum.

Basil Rodriguez, a Columbia student affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine, a group the university suspended in November, said organizers had been in touch with students at other schools about how to erect their own encampments. About 200 people joined one call with students on other campuses.

To attract the most news media attention, the organizers timed the Columbia encampment to coincide with university president Minouche Shafik’s testimony last Wednesday to a congressional panel investigating concerns about antisemitism at elite colleges.

The following day, officers with the New York police department flooded the campus, dismantled the tents, arrested more than 100 activists, and threw out their food and water. Shafik said she had taken the “extraordinary step” of requesting police intervention because the encampment had disrupted campus life and created a “harassing and intimidating environment” for many students.

That decision fueled currents of rage that quickly washed across the country, prompting students at other college campuses to set up their own protest encampments.

“We’re standing here today because we’re inspired by the students at Columbia, who we consider to be the heart of the student movement,” Malak Afaneh, a law student and spokesperson for the 100-student-strong encampment at the University of California, Berkeley, said Tuesday.

Just hours after last week’s arrests, some Columbia students jumped a fence to an adjacent lawn, wrapping themselves in blankets until a new provision of tents eventually arrived. In the week since police cleared the first encampment, the second iteration has grown not only larger, but more organized.

“The university thought they could call the police and make the protesters go away. Now we have twice as many protesters,” said Joseph Howley, an associate professor at Columbia and supporter of the encampment. “The students have experienced a ratcheting up of repression that has prompted them to escalate with their own tactics now.”

The mood was lively and upbeat on Wednesday, as some students passed out matzo left over from a Passover seder and knafeh, a flaky Middle Eastern pastry dropped off by a supportive Palestinian family from New Jersey.

Others attended a teach-in delivered by a Columbia alumnus involved in the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s, pulled books off the shelf of a “People’s Library,” and helped themselves to art supplies from a craft table. Those who’d spent the night in one of roughly 80 tents said they used the bathrooms at nearby university buildings. (An earlier experiment with a “camp toilet” had been quickly abandoned.)

At the nearby law library, a group of negotiators representing the protesters has been meeting intermittently with university administrators since Friday to discuss their demands, as well as amnesty for students and staff facing discipline for participating in the protests.

Those talks broke down on Tuesday night, according to the lead negotiator, Mahmoud Khalil, after he said the university threatened to send in police and the National Guard if the encampment wasn’t gone by midnight. Hundreds of students and faculty quickly packed onto the lawn in the largest numbers since the start of the demonstration.

Overnight, the university backtracked, giving demonstrators a 48-hour extension if the group agreed to block nonstudents from the encampment and remove a certain number of tents. A spokesperson later denied that the university had suggested calling the National Guard.

While there have been confrontations and allegations of antisemitic activity outside the university’s gates, police described students inside the encampment as peaceful and compliant.

Organizers said they’d dismantled a few tents for fire safety reasons, but were still admitting outsiders to the encampment as long as they abided by community guidelines, including: no photographs, littering or engaging with counter-protesters. They said they had no plans to leave until their demands were met.

Opponents of the encampment say it has destabilized campus life, forcing the university to barricade many of its entrances to nonstudents while putting Jewish students in harm’s way.

Omer Lubaton Granot, a graduate student from Israel who is studying for a master’s degree in public administration at Columbia, said the university should have taken “more assertive action” in clearing the encampment. He accused protesters of embracing an aggressive anti-Zionist stance that made him feel unsafe.

“They’re canceling my identity and they’re threatening me as an Israeli and as a Jew,” he said.

Officials including President Joe Biden and Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul have also condemned what they described as antisemitism associated with the protests. On Wednesday, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson held a news conference at Columbia to denounce the encampment, drawing jeers from many students.

Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, noted this week that many of the students were sleeping in the same brand of tents, which he said could indicate that “outside agitators” were responsible for arranging the encampment, a baseless claim that had earlier spread among some right-leaning news media outlets and New York police officials.

Layla Saliba, a Palestinian American graduate student at the Columbia School of Social Work, dismissed the idea. She said the students leading the protest were mostly “nerds” who enjoyed lengthy meetings and consensus building.

“To imply this is AstroTurfed or paid off, when it has actually been students laying the groundwork for this from the very beginning, is ridiculous,” she said.

As for the similarity of the tents, she said the brand had been ordered in bulk by student organizers. As the encampment has expanded, students have brought their own camping gear, she said, pointing to the varied sleeping arrangements on the bustling lawn.

“There’s apparently a lot of people here at Columbia who like to camp,” she added. “I’ll admit I was a bit surprised by that.”

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* This article was originally published here