January 4, 2020
Today’s date is unimportant and irrelevant to what I am about to write. I just happened to have the time to sit down and write today, and I walked by the place that inspired me to write, even though the shop was closed. I am talking about halal food in Japan, specifically, halal ramen.
Perhaps a year and a half ago a new ramen restaurant opened in my neighborhood. A place called Shi-bei Ramen (西北拉麺 しーべいらめん). Nothing unusual about that as there are hundreds of restaurants of all kinds around here. What was unusual was the place served halal ramen, ramen made with beef rather than the usual pork. It is just a few paces away from Suitengū, the most famous Shintō shrine in Tokyo associated with pregnancy, a shrine that has thousands of visitors—about half of them pregnant women—every twelve days on Dog Days, the day of the dog according to the traditional Chinese calendar. It is also just a few steps away from the Royal Park Hotel and a few doors away from a udon restaurant that has been there since before I moved here. Looking in through the window the place looked small, with a counter seating perhaps ten people. Fairly typical of ramen shops in Tokyo. But halal: that was something unusual.
Not eating beef, I never had a reason to go in, let alone sample what they served. But since I pass by most mornings when I go to the Royal Park Hotel to buy a copy of the Japan Times/ New York Times newspaper, I was aware of the place. And since I rarely walked past during business hours I had no idea of how the shop was doing. Until one day I noticed a sign on the door saying they were temporarily closed.
A month or so later I saw the shop was open again. I thought that maybe they had taken some time off to perfect their recipes, that maybe something before had needed improvement. It would not have been the first time something like that happened with a restaurant in Japan. For quite a few months after reopening, whenever I walked by the shop during business hours I saw customers inside. “That’s encouraging,” I said to myself. Even though I will probably never eat there, I do still wish the business success.
Tow or three months ago I started seeing lines of people waiting to get in to eat. Always Japanese people, never any Muslims who eat halal food. I started wondering why someone would open a restaurant serving noodles made according to Islamic religious strictures would open a restaurant in an area with very few Muslims. I see a few Muslims every now and then staying at the Royal Park Hotel. But the numbers are few. Not nearly as many as I see regularly in Asakusa. After thinking about why the reason for Shi-bei Ramen being where it is I eventually came to realize that it is here not to serve Muslim visitors but for something new to offer to Japanese customers.
The more I thought about it the more sense it made. If you want to open a new restaurant in an area with as many as the Ningyōchō areas has, what do you have to do to succeed, what can you do to stand out and distinguish yourself from other places, especially with something as common as ramen? Innovate. Try something new, something not already present in the neighborhood, or even common in all of Tokyo. What the owners seem to come up with is beef ramen. Then, to make it really stand out—and perhaps make it an attractive dining option for people coming for the Olympics later this year—become certified as a halal restaurant, meaning it is approved for Muslims. From what I have observed recently, their plan seems to be working.