Alumnus uses degree to combine passions for food and Japanese

Bridging a gap between two cultures, Ivan ‘Ramen’ Orkin runs successful ramen restaurants in Tokyo and New York

Ramen restaurateur, chef and author Ivan Orkin has used his degree in Japanese Language and Literature (’87) almost every day since graduating from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Orkin’s path to Colorado, and later Japan, was inspired by a job he took in high school.

“I fell in love with Japanese early in life, while working as a dishwasher at a Long Island sushi bar,” Orkin says. “The cooks were very kind. They always fed me all kinds of great stuff.”

This was long before sushi was something people typically ate, but Orkin has always been a culinary adventurer.

“Food has been important to me my whole life, even though I didn’t grow up in a ‘food’ family.

For me, even as a child, eating was very exciting,” he says.

In the year that he worked at the sushi bar, Orkin remembers trying raw hearts and liver, and being interested in what everyone was saying: during a rush, Japanese was the lingua franca of the kitchen.

Years later, when he was ready to go to school, he picked CU-Boulder for its Japanese language program.

“I wasn’t the greatest student, but I just got in my car and went for it,” he says.

When he graduated, he moved to Japan, where he taught English for three years. Orkin liked Japan, but he wasn’t satisfied.

“I was surrounded by everyone in white-collar jobs, and teaching English wasn’t making me any money,” he says.

So in 1993, he moved back to the United States with his Japanese wife and attended the Culinary Institute of America in New York.

"I think, dream, and live in Japanese as much as I do in English.”

“I had my Japanese side of my life. I cooked French and American food for 12 years, and then I decided that I missed Japan,” Orkin says.

So he and his family moved back to Japan. While his wife worked, Orkin took care of their kids. He soon decided he needed a business of some kind, but he was done working for other people.

“Although I was really into eating ramen, when my wife suggested I open a ramen shop restaurant, I thought that was crazy,” Orkin says.

But as a ramen lover, he knew what kind of ramen he wanted to make. He played around with ramen at home for a while, and in 2007, he opened Ivan Ramen in Tokyo, following soon after with Ivan Ramen Plus.

“I learned how to make my own noodles, which is rare even in the Japanese culinary world,” Orkin says.

This set his ramen restaurants apart from others.

“I was able to make really good food, I got the right press, and I got on the hot circuit,” he says.

In 2013, he published a book about his ramen noodle journey called Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession, and Recipes from Tokyo’s Most Unlikely Noodle Joint.

While instant ramen is sometimes considered the go-to for college students, Orkin says he’s never really eaten it, and he can’t make a direct comparison.

The kind of ramen Orkin makes is based on Chinese noodles, and it has a long cooking time. The soup can take anywhere from six to 40 hours to cook, depending on the bones and sauce. The meat is also slow-cooked.

“It takes a long time to cook, but you eat it very quickly,” Orkin says.

He has been able to meld his two passions, Japan and food, and he considers himself lucky.

He now runs two more ramen restaurants in New York City, but he still spend lots of time in Tokyo, and he is still excited about Japanese.

“I think, dream, and live in Japanese as much as I do in English,” he says.

Orkin has remained friends with many Japanese-studies students at CU-Boulder.

“Language students tend to stick to together, to practice and see language-specific movies together,” he says.

Orkin had not been back to Boulder until his son, now a sophomore, started at CU-Boulder.

“I didn’t feel CU had changed that much. It still has the same vibe and warm energy. The students and townspeople alike seem excited about being there,” he says.

One thing Orkin says definitely has changed: “The restaurants in Boulder have gotten fancier.”

Lara Herrington Watson is a CU alumna (’07) and freelance writer who splits her time between Denver and Phoenix.