Field Work Report

Erick Aguirre

Professor Lawson

English 113B

14 March 2013

Fieldwork Report

In Little Tokyo, Los Angeles there is a ramen soup restaurant which goes by the name of Orochon Ramen, home to authentic ramen noodle soup and the hottest ramen dishes there are. Ramen is a Japanese noodle soup consisting of noodles, mixed vegetables varying from broccoli, peas, corn, celery, jalapenos and also includes, peppers and spices, boiled egg, thin strips of pork, broth, oil, stir fry sauce. Orochon has a special spice that is put in the ramen bowls that has a unique taste to it. Other people from other restaurants have tried to steal the spice from Orochon and take it for them, but only to fail. The flavors and ingredients differ for each dish and from the region of Japan.

Orochon is famous for their challenge which is to finish their hottest bowl of ramen including the broth under thirty minutes or less to win bragging rights and their picture on the Wall of Bravery. Out of the twenty thousand people that have tried their challenge only two hundred have successfully finished the bowl. Orochon feels and smells of broth, heat, and spices. Each dish at Orochon Ramen has a different level of spiciness, such as number seven where it is the most basic mild spices, descending all the way to one, one being the hottest ramen dishes in Los Angeles. There is also a special section of the menu where there are two dishes, special number one and special number two, where number two is the hottest bowl. The special number two bowl is what is attempted during Orochon challenge.

When first walking to the restaurant you may expect it to be big atmosphere with lots of seats, but it just so happens that it is a place crammed in a plaza on the second story where tables are ever so close to the stairs on the way up. The inside is not any more spacious, even though Orochon has a superb reputation for their ramen and having hundreds of costumers a day. The Japanese-American mixture appeals to not just regulars of the Japanese ethnicity, but also to the public to try ramen for themselves. However, this can be a problem for the Japanese people or regulars who do not feel they are not having their full experience such as the atmosphere, the people, and other elements. Orochon has to comply with other ethnicities, even though it is meant to be a place for authentic noodle soup. Unlike Shin-Sen-Gummi ramen, which it is a small local restaurant in Torrance filled with regulars, people like traditional Japanese people. It’s also filled with authenticity, meaning when entering the restaurant chefs yell out irasshaimase, which means welcome, having to take off your shoes if sat on a low table as waiters yell out orders versus, showing the chefs the papers of what the customers want, waiters being bilingual, and have a menu in two languages, Japanese and English. Only locals and a handful of people know of this place, keeping it authentic a Japanese ramen restaurant. At Orochon they have words written on flag like material in Japanese, drawings of samurais with no color, a menu is written in Japanese right next to the English translation, and their red curtains they put up to close off the consumer from the kitchen, all which make one feel as though they are in an authentic Japanese restaurant. They try to keep authentic as close as possible without drawing away tourists.

 The head chef and owner of Orochon Ramen is Shigeki Matsuda, who was a mixed martial arts fighter, but it is unknown if he is still active today. Regulars at this restaurant usually are Japanese and greet as if they had been friends for years and proceed to order in Japanese without looking at the menu. This compared to a newcomer behavior, where one can take a while to pick which bowl they want and what additional toppings to add, one might ask if they can substitute the pork to beef or chicken to how spicy each level of ramen is. A regular or Japanese individual might think tourists do not deserve to go here because this is their place to come to for authentic ramen. The owner and waiters/waitresses however feel otherwise as they try to make the restaurant welcoming to all of its customers. This restaurant is a big part of the community because the new people who try it and like the food, may be willing enough to go to other Japanese restaurants in or around the plaza, making little Tokyo more known to the people of Los Angeles and tourists.