Interview for a Malaysian Magazine

I received an interview request from a magazine in Malaysia with over 30 years of history. Below is a translation of the message. (Partially omitted)

An interview request came for the soy milk ramen specialty shop 'Towzen'.

We are deeply grateful that you have kindly agreed to introduce the soy milk ramen specialty shop 'Towzen' to our readers in Malaysia.
We have prepared the following questions to provide our readers with valuable comments on your culinary philosophy.
We will convey your passion and experience regarding your Oriental Vegan soy milk ramen to our readers.We believe your story will enrich our interview and bring a deeper understanding to our readers.
Once again, thank you very much for the opportunity to feature your Oriental Vegan soy milk ramen.We would like to learn more about your esteemed restaurant and share it with our readers.

Reporter and Writer, 'XX' Magazine, XX XX

Questions for Mr. Yonekawa (Self-introduction): About the history and origins of Towzen

Q: First, please tell us about yourself. Also, please tell us about the history and origins of the soy milk ramen specialty shop 'Towzen' (hereinafter 'Towzen').
Ans: Minoru Yonekawa, 52 years old. I have been involved in the food and beverage industry for many years, gaining experience as a waiter in high-end French cuisine, as opening staff and assistant manager at a sushi franchise, and as a bartender and cook at a long-established food bar in Kyoto. After that, I served as a head chef at a Kyoto yudofu (boiled tofu) restaurant for over 10 years, and I am also active as a master of the shakuhachi. Currently, I run the oldest and longest-standing vegan ramen specialty restaurant in Japan (which means it might be the oldest in the world?). As a chef with extensive experience in the food industry and deep knowledge of traditional Japanese culture, I provide customers with new culinary experiences.Originally, when I was the head chef at a yudofu restaurant in Kyoto, I was the first in Kyoto to start adding soy milk to yudofu. Therefore, my shop was the birthplace of soy milk yudofu. Before that, there was no culture of using soy milk in hot pot dishes. (Later, the genre of soy milk hot pot was born in society, and versions containing chicken or pork became mainstream.) There is a reason for this. Famous yudofu in Kyoto consists of only three things in the pot:
1. Water (well water pumped from several hundred meters underground in Kyoto),2. Rishiri kelp (the part near the root of kelp about 20m long harvested on Rishiri Island in Hokkaido. Rebun Island kelp is the same),
3. Tofu (there are two patterns: homemade and sourced. The former is 'Okutan' in Nanzen-ji, the latter is 'Yudofu Sagano' in Arashiyama).Our shop used 100% Enrei soybeans from Toyama, sourced from 'Tofu no Sugai' in Shimogamo, Kyoto. We sourced handmade, rich tofu that isn't sold in supermarkets, solidified using 'nigari' (magnesium chloride) as a coagulant.
Yudofu restaurants make homemade dipping sauces that go well with that tofu and serve it with condiments. It is served as a course meal with sesame tofu, raw yuba sashimi, nama-fu mochi dengaku, other seasonal small bowls and dishes, rice, pickles, dessert, etc.Yudofu is made by putting water, kelp, and tofu in a pot, simmering it without boiling, and eating the warmed, softened tofu with dipping sauce and condiments. It is simple but a profound way of eating, and before the meat-eating culture entered Japan, it was so deeply ingrained in Japanese people that there were yudofu restaurants all over the country. I heard that it was originally a way of eating for monks in Zen temples and spread to the general public.
Tofu is made from soybeans. Soybeans are rich in nutrients and contain as much protein as meat or fish. Yudofu allows for the efficient consumption of large amounts of those soybeans in a short time, even for large groups.In those days, when there were no family-style restaurants at shrines and temples visited by many people, it seems that yudofu restaurants were places where hundreds of people could eat quickly.
Getting back to the story, at the yudofu restaurant where I was head chef, there were customers who would drink up the remaining kelp and broth (the water after boiling the tofu) without leaving anything after eating the tofu. Most people just eat the tofu and leave the kelp and boiling water. However, since some people would drink it all, I asked them once. They said, 'When you boil tofu with water and kelp, some good extract might come out of the tofu, and the kelp also releases dashi, so it's a waste not to drink it.'That was when I had a flash of inspiration for 'soy milk yudofu.' I added soy milk to the water part of the yudofu's tofu, kelp, and water. By doing so, I succeeded in sealing in the good extract from the tofu. From then on, I provided a ladle and encouraged all customers to drink the remaining broth after eating the soy milk yudofu, mixed with the dipping sauce. That was the moment the prototype of soy milk hot pot was born. And the soup, which was a blend of that broth and dipping sauce, later became soy milk risotto, and by adding noodles at the end, it became soy milk ramen.
Soy milk ramen became popular among the staff as a meal, and I researched it over and over again so that it would debut as an off-season limited menu at the soy milk yudofu restaurant. For about a month, the staff's meal was soy milk ramen every day to determine the golden ratio of the soup made from water, dashi, and soy milk. Finally, the golden ratio was completed, and we began offering the original soy milk ramen 'Musashi' at the soy milk yudofu restaurant.Many off-season limited menus had been thought up in the past, but they lacked impact and didn't get much attention. However, only the soy milk ramen had repeat customers, and after a while, famous Kyoto magazines and overseas television came to interview us.
I felt, 'This is something different from before.' However, a yudofu restaurant is a yudofu restaurant, not a ramen shop. Since it wasn't a shop where ramen was the main dish as an off-season limited menu, my desire to try running a shop that only served soy milk ramen grew. Just then, I met my current wife, and when we bought a new house, we decided to buy a hidden-away Kyoto townhouse that was a shop-attached residence, with the shop on the first floor and our home on the second. I decided to wear two hats: working at the yudofu restaurant during the day and running a soy milk ramen shop at home at night. Thus, on July 26, 2004, the soy milk ramen specialty shop 'Towzen' opened quietly and without any advertising.

The secret story behind the birth of Vegan soy milk ramen and its behind-the-scenes stories and failures

Q: Japanese ramen has a rich and diverse history. How has the evolution of that ramen influenced the creation of the characteristic menu at your shop?
Also, what kind of influences are you receiving?Ans: My wife's family home is in Hakata, so I am influenced by Hakata ramen. Only Hakata has a system where you can use thin noodles with a short boiling time and get extra noodle refills (kaedama). At the time, when people said ramen, it was tonkotsu, chicken bone, soy sauce, salt, or miso, and Kyoto was dominated by tonkotsu soy sauce. Tonkotsu ramen uses the bone parts that are normally thrown away after removing the meat that can be eaten from the pig, and chicken bone soup uses the bone parts that are normally thrown away after removing the chicken meat to make the ramen soup. However, since the teachings of Zen do not allow for unnecessary killing, I thought, wouldn't it be nice if there was at least one ramen shop in the world where you could eat without killing pigs or chickens? That's how soy milk ramen, which was neither tonkotsu nor chicken bone, was born, something no one was doing at the time.
I used 'raw yuba sashimi' for the topping because I used it in the yudofu course meal, but I also thought it was a symbol of Kyoto's Zen food culture and could replace chashu pork. And by placing a plum in the center, I tried to express the Japanese national flag.I wasn't interested in it as a business because making soy sauce, salt, or miso ramen as a vegan dish seemed easy to make, had little impact, the method was easy to imagine, and anyone could make it and it would be imitated immediately. In that respect, trade secrets are essential to express a tonkotsu style with soy milk, so it cannot be imitated. Perhaps this trade secret cannot be imitated by anyone. I'm thinking of teaching it to someone (a disciple) who will help spread this taste in Japan if they train for about 2 to 3 years. Actually, I am looking for disciples. (Seriously)
A long time ago, a disciple who came from Hiroshima developed and offered a champon-style vegetable-rich ramen that vegetarians like, but it was actually very difficult to offer many types of products in a narrow kitchen like ours as a business, so we stopped after that. Now, he runs a restaurant named 'vegan cafe CLOUD8' at the top of a mountain in the north of Kyoto.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/3dKUTMdH5yamXXQW6
Also, in the very early days, there was a creative soy milk ramen where the ingredients changed every month, but it was too much work, so I stopped. I tried using seasonal vegetables, expressing chashu with nama-fu or wheat gluten, using wild plants like canola blossoms and butterbur, and garnishing with delicate kinpira burdock instead of bean sprouts, but none of them were profitable, and I didn't make money for the effort. (At the time, a bowl of ramen was 600 yen)

The influence of soy milk ramen on Japanese vegan culture

Q: Towzen's soy milk ramen offers completely Oriental vegan cuisine. Please tell us the reason for incorporating a vegan menu as the main focus rather than as an option, and how it is influencing Japanese vegan culture, especially Kyoto's vegan culture.
Ans: The initial concept was that 'bean' meant soy milk ramen and 'Zen' meant zazen, so soy milk ramen meant a light meal before doing zazen. If you do zazen on an empty stomach, you get hungry and can't concentrate, so you eat a little before doing zazen. One of the meals (vegetarian) to eat at that time was soy milk ramen. Of course, since we don't do unnecessary killing, it means no animal products (vegan) as we call it now. The word 'vegan' started to be used in Japan 4-5 years after my shop was opened, and I didn't know about veganism either. Eventually, when vegans started coming to eat, the shop became full and there were lines. I think many Japanese people in the food industry were also coming from all over the country to inspect it around that time. After that, vegan restaurants started appearing in Tokyo and all over the country in the blink of an eye. My shop is not in a good location, even if I say so myself; it is in a quiet residential area. It is far from major stations, and it is not in a place with a lot of foot traffic in the city, nor is it near tourist spots. It is not a place where a shop would become popular by common sense. So, if you think about it a little, wouldn't you think that you could easily succeed in business by opening a vegan cafe, restaurant, or a unique vegan ramen shop near a station, in the city, or near a tourist spot? In that sense, I think I have had an influence on the vegan culture of Japan and Kyoto without anyone knowing.

On the consistency between Kyoto's Shojin Ryori and vegan culture

Q: Please tell us about the consistency with vegan culture in Japan, especially in Kyoto.Ans: Kyoto has many Zen temples, and culture and cuisine that do not originally use animal products, such as Shojin Ryori, had permeated. However, Japanese Shojin Ryori is something that monks training at temples eat, and the general public had no interest in it at all. General Japanese people eat some kind of meat every day, and even some monks eat meat. And Shojin Ryori has 'Hare' and 'Ke'. 'Hare' refers to gorgeous, high-end Shojin Ryori, which is luxurious Shojin Ryori served only once a year when a high-ranking monk from another land visits a Zen temple, and 'Ke' refers to simple, plain Shojin Ryori like one soup and three dishes that low-ranking monks in training eat every day. Currently, the Shojin Ryori delivered from restaurants and caterers near Zen temples is the 'Hare' type, and most of them cost 10,000 yen or more. Business cannot be established with the 'Ke' type of Shojin Ryori, and it does not exist in the world. So, if we incorporate Shojin Ryori into ramen, a national dish that Japanese people love the most and eat every day, wouldn't people who don't eat animal meat for some reason, people who want to eat Shojin Ryori but can't because it's expensive, and vegans coming from overseas be able to eat it? And wouldn't it also make vegans interested in Shojin Ryori, and make Zen temples and Shojin Ryori shops think that vegans could be their target customers? With that thought, by having vegan Shojin Ryori soy milk ramen, there might be a possibility that they will recognize each other and move closer.

Neither thick nor light, the middle = 'kossari'

Q: It takes technique and skill to make truly memorable ramen. Please tell us the secret of 'Towzen' for making flavorful ramen. Please tell us the secret to making fragrant ramen that you will never forget once you eat it.
Ans: 'Try & Error.' It is a constant repetition of challenges and failures. Soy milk is highly nutritious and delicate, so it ferments and rots quickly in the summer, and the change in taste is intense and not straightforward. Freshly made soup is green, or young, or thin, and the taste is like Beaujolais Nouveau. However, after boiling it down many times, or as time passes and yuba forms, it changes into a rich, thick soup after a while. It's no good if it becomes too thick, and it's no good if it's too thin. So, I aim for a soup in the middle (kossari) that is neither thick nor light. For a ramen shop, the soup is life. So, I am happy to see customers eating without leaving any soup.

'Towzen' does not think it has succeeded yet.

Q: Many elements are needed to make a restaurant successful. Among them, in the highly competitive food service industry, what do you think are the important elements that contribute to the success of 'Towzen'?
What do you think is the key to the success of 'Towzen' in the highly competitive food service industry?Ans: First of all, the concept of this soy milk ramen is 'Universal Peace.' We are aiming for universal peace on the premise that the world will be at peace. Meat-eating culture may be a trigger for war. And I don't intend to compete. Recently, it is not uncommon to talk about it with the concept of co-creation rather than competition. With the existence of 'Towzen,' other vegan ramen restaurants are also being born, and by existing together, we move to a new stage. First of all, I think it lies in building a vegetarian culture that is comparable to the meat-eating culture. And 'Towzen' has not yet reached success. The success that 'Towzen' aims for is to spread proper Japanese culture to the world, to create the original 'Towzen' all over the world, and then to spread the culture and spirit of Zen, and to form a 'Nihon Town' like Chinatown as the first goal. The next is...

The signature menu items are 'Musashi' and 'Eel-style Grilled Eggplant Pressed Sushi'

Q: Please tell us some of the signature menu items that embody the ramen philosophy of 'Towzen' and are loved by regular customers in Kyoto.
Ans: It's Musashi. It expresses the Japanese national flag with raw yuba and plum. Musashi is named after Miyamoto Musashi, because there was a pine tree near where the yudofu restaurant used to be where Miyamoto Musashi and the Yoshioka clan fought a duel. Since he was the first person to fight with swords in both hands using the two-sword style, many famous people call themselves 'Musashi' or 'Two-sword style.' Soy milk ramen 'Towzen' is also a two-sword style of ramen and Zen, and since it is a soy milk ramen born near the place where Musashi fought his duel, I named it 'Musashi'.Also, 'Eel-style Grilled Eggplant Pressed Sushi' is popular. Making use of my experience working at a sushi restaurant in the past, I could do a vegan sushi restaurant if I wanted to, but I'm busy with soy milk ramen, so I dare to do only eggplant pressed sushi. It was a limited-time product, but it was so popular that it became a standard menu item. It was devised by a disciple who is now on Prince Edward Island in Canada.

Japan and Malaysia are different

Q: When "Mamezen" expanded into Malaysia, did you change the flavor to suit Malaysian culture? Or did you recreate the flavor faithful to your Kyoto roots?
How did Malaysian culture influence your menu and meals?Ans: I tried to recreate it faithfully, but perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I adjusted the flavor to suit the local area? Of course, the climate and environment are different, and it is nearly impossible to procure the exact same ingredients, so it is nearly impossible to recreate the exact same flavor. It seems that in Malaysia, a style of choosing and ordering various items from a large menu is preferred, so there are more items than at the Kyoto shop. Of course, I am making efforts to provide better things by repeating fine-tuning.
Since Malaysian culture is different from Japan's, the service speed is faster, and the appearance of the dishes is more vibrant. We use local ingredients that are not available in Japan, and we are making efforts to ensure that you can enjoy a more fulfilling and high-quality vegetarian cuisine.

Was soy milk ramen born from a state of nothingness!?

Q: Mr. Yonekawa, what are your thoughts on cooking as a form of art or Zen?
Also, what are your thoughts on Zen?Ans: Zen is a school of Japanese Buddhism and a practical spiritual discipline that seeks intuitive enlightenment through Zazen (seated meditation). Meals prepared for monks so as not to hinder their training are called Shojin Ryori, and a person like a head chef called a Tenzo is responsible for the cooking. The core of Zen is to understand the truth of this world through an experience of enlightenment that transcends words and concepts. Zazen is the main practice of Zen, and in Zazen, one aims to achieve enlightenment by sitting while paying attention to posture, breathing, and the state of mind. Every day, I practiced Zazen before work (before entering the kitchen after cleaning the dry landscape stone garden and watering it, which is called Samu) and during my break after finishing the lunch business. During Zazen, I would think deeply about one of the Zen phrases posted in the book "Hotto Suru Zengo" (Zen phrases that put you at ease), and when I got tired of that book, I would think deeply about the Zen phrases in the book "Zoku: Hotto Suru Zengo," and when I got tired of that book, I would study the meaning of the day in the Mayan calendar of the Mayan civilization and think deeply about it during Zazen. I also practiced various types of Zazen, such as walking Zen, the method of Nanso, counting breaths, Zazen while staring at incense smoke, and Zazen while staring at a candle flame. Furthermore, I decided to do a uniquely evolved form of Zazen called "Sleeping Zen" every night before going to bed. I blocked out all information (newspapers, television, magazines, movies, etc.) and applied the brain science techniques I learned through self-study, and finally! I experienced an out-of-body experience. At that time, I had an experience like swimming in space, and from such an experience, I began to aim for world peace. In order for the world to become a place where humanity can go to space quickly, the world needs to be peaceful, and for that, it is necessary to popularize meals that do not involve unnecessary killing. For that reason, as the quickest shortcut, vegan soy milk ramen was born from a state of nothingness.

Gokan no Ge (The Five Contemplations)

Q: Also, what are your thoughts on the relationship between the artistry of ramen and cooking and the philosophy of Zen?
What are your thoughts on the relationship with the philosophy of Zen?Ans: Zen is about aiming for a state of enlightenment, and it is all about practice. At the soy milk ramen specialty shop "Mamezen," by eating ramen, we aim for a state of enlightenment, and we practice training through the way we eat. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that eating a bowl of ramen, from the beginning to the end of how you eat it, expresses the entirety of a person's life, and it could even be said that the fate of humanity depends on each person's way of eating. It is desirable to order the food, wait quietly for the food to be prepared, recite the Gokan no Ge in your heart, prepare your mind for the meal, and when the ramen is served, eat the noodles, eat the toppings, and eat it all the way to the last drop of soup.

The Gokan no Ge are:
・First, consider the amount of effort and the origin of the food.・Second, reflect on your own virtues and shortcomings as you receive the offering.
・Third, guard your mind and depart from faults, with greed as the root.・Fourth, treat this food as a proper medicine to heal the withered body.
・Fifth, receive this food for the sake of achieving the path.

To state the meaning simply,

Gratitude

Think about how this meal was made, and receive it with gratitude for the work of the many people who prepared it.

Reflection

Reflect on whether your own actions are worthy of receiving this meal.

Cultivating a Righteous Mind

Value food culture and respect dining etiquette. Maintain correct posture while eating, lift the bowl, and finish the soup without leaving any behind.

Physical and Mental Health

Food is a good medicine, so we receive it to maintain the health of our body and mind.

Practicing the Bodhisattva Path

We receive this meal now in order to accomplish our own path.