Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession, and Recipes

An American running an acclaimed ramen restaurant in Tokyo seems so wildly unlikely that it would barely qualify as a movie plot, but since 2007, Orkin has been doing just that. The surprisingly compelling story of his journey to such a situation takes more than a third of the book—and is well worth reading—before Orkin embarks on a series of remarkably precise recipes for the components of a great bowl of ramen.

Elements include separately rendered chicken and pork fat, two flavored salts, chicken stock, dashi, cured bamboo shoots, pork belly, half-cooked eggs, and of course, the noodles.

If ramen is your obsession, you will likely never find another book so likely to be on the same wavelength.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.