1日4万食を製造する東京のラーメン店御用達の製麺工場！つけ麺ブーム火付け役｢不死鳥カラス｣氏が手がけるパスタも話題！製麺職人に密着 Japan Ramen Noodle Factory Asakusa

1日4万食を製造する東京のラーメン店御用達の製麺工場！つけ麺ブーム火付け役｢不死鳥カラス｣氏が手がけるパスタも話題！製麺職人に密着 Japan Ramen Noodle Factory Asakusa

Asakusa Kaikaro is a long-established noodle company founded in 1950 in Asakusa, Tokyo, that produces custom noodles for many ramen shops. In this special edition, we follow Asakusa Kaikaro, a manufacturer of Chinese noodles such as ramen and tsukemen for famous Tokyo shops . Asakusa Kaikaro makes its own custom noodles based on the requests of each shop. We will introduce the Chinese noodles used in famous Ginza shops visited by many customers, along with the undercover salesman “Phoenix Karasu,” who has been involved in Chinese noodles for many years, as well as fresh pasta used in popular Italian restaurants, which has also been interviewed in Italy. First, let’s start with the noodle-making process . Asakusa Kaikaro has been producing Chinese noodles for many ramen shops and Chinese restaurants for 75 years since its founding. Starting with noodles for the popular Tokyo tsukemen shop “Rokurinsha,” which sparked the tsukemen boom, a special flour mixture devised by Phoenix Karasu (hereinafter referred to as Karasu) is now on sale, and the famous Kanda shop “Chukasoba Katsumoto” and the famous Ginza shop “Ginza Custom noodles made to meet the requests of Chef Matsumura of Ginza Hachigo are also produced at Asakusa Kaikaro. The pasta developed by Chef Higuchi and Mr. Karasu, executive chefs of the Salone Group, is also produced. Both the noodles used at Ginza Hachigo and the pasta used by the Salone Group are made using a special flour called Farina da Salone, and are made by changing the blend of water, kansui (water lye water), and other ingredients to match the flour. We were able to photograph the process of making Ginza Hachigo’s custom noodles. The noodles at Ginza Hachigo, which is bustling with customers every day, are made with a firm, crisp texture like pasta, and are thin and supple, with a length that allows you to slurp them down. Next up is Karahigu noodles, a type of pasta developed by Chef Higuchi and Mr. Karasu through repeated trial and error. They are made with olive oil and eggs, without the use of kansui (water lye water). The pasta made at Asakusa Kaikaro is also used at SALONE. うさちゃんのこだわりの味覚を解説サイトもたくさんありますので、 麦味覚を使えるできます。 English: This Italian restaurant serves pasta made with Karahigu noodles, a specially made fresh pasta with low water content that emphasizes crispness, and a course meal made with carefully selected ingredients chosen by the chef. Asakusa Kaikaro not only produces Chinese noodles, but also produces wrappers for gyoza, wontons, and shumai, supporting many restaurants in Tokyo and elsewhere. Karasu is not only involved in PR and sales activities, but is also currently on-site as a noodle craftsman, making noodles . From here, we filmed Karasu, who explained about noodle making and shared stories about his restaurant that can only be heard here. Noodles made from a flour called Authion are mainly used to cut noodles used in “Jiro-style ramen restaurants.” He explained the cutting blade of the noodle-making machine. Although the shape is the same, it can be used to cut straight noodles or curly noodles. Food waste is taken into consideration when making the noodles, so only a small amount was cut . Straight noodles . This is curly noodles . These noodles are made from the outer part of the wheat (closer to the skin), so the color varies. 味気ないですね。 English: Ramen Jiro and Jiro-style ramen shops use this flour because they want customers to feel full with cheap, filling ramen. A ramen shop that Karasu has a close relationship with is called “Ramen Shop Maru-ka”, and although it is not a direct descendant of Ramen Shop, nor did Karasu train there , as a chef he studied the flavor of Ramen Shop and created his own unique Ramen Shop flavor. The “Maruka” in the shop name uses the character “ka” because they use Kaikaro noodles. In documentaries and the like, they say “maru-ka” because they use Kaikaro noodles. No one expected it to become such a huge force, and it is a popular ramen shop with branches in various places in the Kanto region. Ramen Shop Maru-ka alone makes this many noodles, and there are more branches planned to open in the future. Karasu believes that as a noodle craftsman, he should continue making noodles by going out to the field rather than working from an office. Not only does he make noodles to suit the requests of the shops, but he also works with the eccentrics and farinas. Flour that he himself formulated for Da Salone and other noodle companies is sold as a product by flour mills , and other noodle manufacturers purchase this flour and use it in their noodles. This shows Karasu’s strong belief in wanting to do something that no one else is doing. Karasu has been at Asakusa Kaikaro for 24 years, and has been making pasta for 12 years. 13 years ago, he never even thought he would be making pasta. When he started, he thought, “There’s no point in doing what other people do,” and “I want to make pasta in my own unique way.” He doesn’t think it’s widespread nationwide yet, but he has published his pasta-making method, and he hopes to share it with many noodle manufacturers and spread the word. It would be wonderful if something born in a small factory in Asakusa could become a new part of Japan’s noodle culture. He sees his final job as making the “Karahigu Noodles” created by Karasu and Chef Higuchi the standard in Japan. Here, we filmed the process of cutting the noodles at Ginza Hachigo . Hachigo’s custom-made noodles are made longer than regular noodles so that customers can slurp and enjoy the noodles. The finished custom-made noodles are delivered to the store. Apparently , the cutting edge, thickness, and length of the noodles are all memorized. Noodles of this thickness are about the same thickness as the morisoba noodles at Taishoken in Higashi-Ikebukuro. Depending on the size and space of the store, some stores are unable to make their own noodles , so this is a very welcome story, but Thanks to my relationship with Yamagishi Kazuo of Taishoken and Rokurinsha, I was entrusted with making noodles at a newly opened restaurant that couldn’t make its own noodles, and I was given such a wonderful opportunity. On that occasion, I told the owner (Yamagishi) that I wanted to make noodles that were tailored to the restaurant, rather than noodles based on his recipe, and he gave me permission, which made me very happy. Even before I started using durum wheat, I think Sano Minoru of Shina Sobaya had tried using it in his noodles, but I think the amount of durum wheat used in noodles is different, so I would like to make noodles based on that wheat. I had that idea in mind, so I think it also led to my pasta making. For the first two years after I started making pasta, I made it using a durum wheat-based mixture made for ramen and tsukemen. I thought there was no point in me doing it if it wasn’t for that, so I think that even with that pasta, people in Japan were satisfied to a certain extent, and many people said it was delicious, but if an Italian had eaten pasta made with the recipe at the time, it probably wouldn’t have been accepted as pasta. It’s true that many customers had never eaten pasta like that, but most of them said it was delicious with a chewy texture. I was concerned about what Chef Higuchi had said about pasta, that it’s not about being chewy, but being crisp, so I thought about the recipe and made it into pasta , and I felt a difference in the level of interest between the pasta that Chef Higuchi wanted and the customer’s reaction that it was delicious, so I thought I needed to come up with a recipe that Italians could eat and recognize as pasta. And so, Farina We decided to make Da Salone flour with the current composition, and to sell it as a flour milling company product, with information made public. This is what we believe will drive a new noodle culture, born from a local factory. We cut thick, long noodles by adjusting the gaps and length. Just by cutting the noodles at different thicknesses, we can achieve this much change in thickness. These noodles may also be cut in a way similar to the way Ginza Hachigo’s custom-made noodles are made. These noodles are used for tsukemen and mazesoba. These noodles are “Chonan” noodles. These noodles are used at a restaurant called “Montaichio,” and there are four restaurants named after the eldest son. The restaurant wants noodles that are as straight as possible, but even if they are cut with a straight blade, they can curl up and become curly, so they have to be careful. Pasta is also cut into rods in the same way, but when you think of pasta, you think of straight dried noodles, so they make it in a way that makes it straight. After cutting, the pasta is wrapped in paper and shipped in 1kg portions, so it is folded and prepared for today’s production. A typical restaurant uses 100g of pasta per serving, so they produce 1,600 servings per day. This process will be done later when they cut the pasta. This is one of the important steps used when making pasta. We are not currently accepting new orders for the pasta made at Asakusa Kaikaro. When a noodle factory that has not previously produced pasta starts to produce pasta, it first starts by researching how fresh pasta is made. In such cases, there is a difference in the equipment used to make the pasta; pasta is made with durum wheat semolina flour using a general extrusion type of equipment. This is not the same as making regular fresh pasta, so in my case, I thought, what’s the point of making it the same way as others? When making pasta at a regular shop, the dough is made with flour and water, and then stretched and cut in a pasta machine, which is the same method as making noodles today. We started making pasta because we thought it would be meaningful to do so without making any capital investments, using the current equipment at Asakusa Kaikaro.If one day this pasta and manufacturing method become the standard, we believe it will be the same as starting up an entirely new pasta manufacturer.There are many Chinese noodle manufacturers all over Japan, and they have published pasta-making recipes, so we have made it possible to manufacture pasta immediately, which is the biggest thing.Now that many noodle factories are able to manufacture pasta, we believe there is a possibility that it will become the standard throughout Japan.The cut pasta is lined up here.We took the cut pasta to another location, and while the Chinese noodles are simply stacked in boxes, pasta requires a separate process.Since the pasta is cut with a cutting blade, there are uneven, thin pieces, but the purpose is not to remove the uneven pasta. However, as many restaurants dry the pasta they make in-house, I think there is a difference in the condition of the pasta on top and bottom, and by exposing the pasta to air, we change the condition of the pasta. It’s partly for my own satisfaction, but after we started doing this, Chef Higuchi’s reaction changed and he told me that the condition of the noodles had improved. I had been trying various things to make the pasta crisp rather than chewy when eating it, and starting this process made a difference, so although this process takes time and effort, I always do this step so that the pasta is exposed to air all over. If I’m working while cutting the pasta, the work doesn’t progress, so now I have the work done in another place before delivering it. Many restaurants use the pasta I make, but there is a big difference from the pasta I make in-house, as the water content (hydration rate) is different, so This is pasta that can never be made in a store. When making pasta with a handmade pasta machine, the flour to water ratio must be about 50/50, so it is difficult to make pasta that is chewy. Therefore, most stores arrange fresh pasta made in stores in trays after it is made and dry it to remove the moisture. However, the large machines at noodle factories are powerful, so they can make pasta with a moisture content that cannot be made in stores, which creates demand . Therefore, I think that there has been a huge increase in orders from stores that have been making pasta by hand without purchasing fresh pasta. Custom noodles made to order according to the store’s order are packaged and delivered to the store. We interviewed Karasu after he had finished his work for the day. On the 1st, At Karou, we produce noodles from 200 bags of flour, and although the weight of the noodles varies, if we assume that an average bowl of ramen weighs 150g, one bag can make about 200 servings of noodles. With 200 bags of flour, we produce 30,000 to 40,000 servings of noodles every day, even by simple calculation. In terms of the number of customers across Japan, we produce noodles for 700 to 800 restaurants, and there are many customers I don’t even know. My motivation for starting to make pasta came about 12 years ago, when I met Chef Higuchi. Until then, I thought of it as a behind-the-scenes job, and although noodles are essential to ramen, I never thought of noodles as the main role. I had the image of noodles as a “hardworking supporting actor,” but when I decided to make pasta with Chef Higuchi, Sometimes chefs will say things like, I don’t know if it’s the same in the ramen world, but in the world of Italian pasta, the noodles made by Karasu are the main attraction, and the sauce is there to bring out the flavor of the noodles. I was very happy to hear that, and I wanted my fellow pasta makers all over the country to empathize with that, and I thought it would be wonderful if we could create something where the noodles we make are the main attraction. So, we started an activity called Karahigu noodles, which were born in a small factory in Asakusa, and we want the same noodles to be made all over Japan. This activity has also spread little by little, and we have now started selling noodles for home use in the Tokyo metropolitan area. When we first started making pasta with Chef Higuchi, we wanted to make pasta using what we could make with our current equipment, and we didn’t want to invest in equipment. I decided to manufacture it without any of those things, so I started by using a flour mixture that I had designed for ramen, and if it didn’t turn out to be pasta, I would give up. Then, it was completed as pasta, and although the pasta made in the first two years was well received by Japanese people, I thought that if Italians tried it, it might not be what they would call pasta. Still, I was concerned about the pasta, so I went to the restaurant every time the menu changed and listened to the feedback from customers who were eating it. Even though they said that chewy pasta was delicious, Chef Higuchi told me from the beginning that pasta doesn’t need to be chewy, that the important thing is that it’s crisp, so I wanted to make pasta that Italians would be happy with, so I reviewed the mixture and tried the farina. I created Farina da Salone at first, and I applied the ramen recipe to pasta. I then declared that I would use the new recipe for pasta to apply to Chinese noodles as well, and that pasta-derived recipe was then used for ramen, and that was the Chinese noodles that were used at Ginza Hachigo. Although the ingredients are different, the noodles at Ginza Hachigo are made using only wheat flour and kansui (water-based simmered water). The water content is the same, but just using different kneading water results in a completely different texture. I realized that it was my job to accomplish this, and in 2015, I created the recipe for Farina da Salone, and Ginza Hachigo opened in 2018. During those three years, while making pasta, I got to know Chef Matsumura of Chukasoba Katsumoto and Tsukesoba Kanda Katsumoto, and he helped me to realize what I wanted to do with noodles, meeting Chef Matsumura’s requests and working with him at Ginza Hachigo. After hearing about Hachigo’s concept, I spent three years trying to create those special noodles. Up until that point, no restaurant had been featured in the Michelin Guide using the noodles I make, but I was asked to make supple, low-hydration noodles in a clear soup, so up until then I had only made noodles with a high moisture content. However, as I continued making pasta, I realized that many of the noodles have a low-hydration formula that is unique to pasta, and that they would be suitable for low-hydration Chinese noodles using Farina da Salone. This led to the creation of the low-hydration Chinese noodles used at Ginza Hachigo , and we were featured in the Bib Gourmand of the Michelin Guide, which had never been featured before, from the year we opened. Until then, only four restaurants had earned one Michelin star, including Ginza Hachigo, but all of the restaurants other than Ginza Hachigo used homemade noodles , and we won Bib Gourmand two years in a row, and Ginza Hachigo was the first to use noodles from a noodle factory until it received one star. When this happened, it gave me a dream-like experience. Finally, I would like to introduce Karahigu Noodles, which were invented and perfected by Karasu and Chef Higuchi. Karahigu noodles have been featured in many magazines since their development, and are now available for general household use at My Basket stores in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Sales began in February 2025. Dried pasta noodles are used in Italian restaurants, coffee shops, and ordinary households, but Karahigu noodles differ from dried noodles in that they have a shorter cooking time and are less likely to stretch. Unlike dried noodles, Karahigu noodles are easy to use whenever you think, “I’ll have pasta today,” and are therefore being sold for home use. Due to their convenience, I believe they will be very useful, and they have become widely available, so although they are currently only sold in the Tokyo metropolitan area, I hope that many people will try them and that they will become a standard product throughout Japan.

#ramen #ramennoodles #japanesefood

1950年に創業し75年続く東京のラーメン店を支える老舗製麺企業｢浅草開化楼｣｡

これまで多くの中華麺を製造し､浅草だけでなく関東から全国のラーメン店からのオーダーを受け､1日4万食分の製麺をこなす製麺業界のパイオニア｡つけ麺ブームのきっかけになった名店の製麺からはじまり､現在ではイタリアからも取材にやってくる話題のパスタも販売｡
自ら現場で作業も続ける覆面営業マン｢不死鳥カラス｣氏の職人魂と､ものづくりへのこだわりを取材させていただきました｡

【撮影協力】浅草開化楼
【住所】東京都台東区元浅草4-8-4
【Map】https://maps.app.goo.gl/dC9h3qb1Z75GsFRg7
http://www.kaikarou.jp/
https://x.com/asakusakaikarou
https://x.com/w960phoenix

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