Food - Drink
Tokyo Vs. Sapporo Ramen: What's The Difference?
By RYAN CASHMAN
Tokyo, Japan's capital, is a famous bustling city, while Sapporo is a smaller, slower-paced city in Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island. One thing that these very different cities have in common is that their residents cook and eat plenty of ramen, but Tokyo-style ramen is still quite different from Sapporo-style ramen.
Tokyo opened its first ramen shop in 1910, before Sapporo caught wind of the popular noodle soup. Tokyo ramen broths have a medium body and a base of pork, chicken, or dashi, flavored with shoyu (soy sauce) and mixed with curly, wide noodles; it shares some of these traits with Yokohama ramen, its predecessor and inspiration.
Meanwhile, Sapporo is the birthplace of miso ramen, which gained popularity in the 1960s; today, miso is a major category of ramen, alongside shio (salt) and shoyu. Sapporo miso ramen contains thick noodles in a pork, chicken, or seafood broth, topped with hearty add-ons like cabbage, ground pork, bean sprouts, soft-boiled eggs, and sweet corn.