Tampopo may have left the building — the Lesley Building, that is — but the mutual love and time-tested affection between the Japanese street food eatery and its customers continues. Tampopo proprietor Yasumasa Ito offered some recipes from his 34 years of business along with “insider how tos” on a Tampopo commemorative website.
The site was set up by former employee Kotaro Moria to capture farewell memories from diners and to maintain a living tribute to “Ito-san,” Tampopo’s hardworking founder and chef.
In the time since its launch just prior to Tampopo’s closing at the end of June, the website has expanded from being just a digital Post It board to include blog posts from Moria, who lives in Kanazawa, Japan. Moria has written about his employment at the restaurant when a student in Boston and his return 16 years later to help Ito get through the final throng of adoring well-wishers looking for one last glorious don buri bowl (the long lines snaked through the Lesley Building). There’s also merch (Goodbye Tampopo tees) and now, the recipes that kept bringing people back.
The site, which announces “Tampopo is closed,” also cheekily adds “See you someday at Tampopo 2.” The recipes are two sauces, two bowls and a dressing. Up top is the agedashi tofu broth and agedashi tofu itself (not too complicated from my mile-high view) and the soburo donburi bowl — the topping of which is a ragout chunk sauce of ground meat (chicken, pork and/or beef) with ginger, miso and soy sauce that can be served over rice or as an added topping for a donburi bowl — rice and cubed tofu or rice and agedashi tofu with that agedashi sauce. Ito-san’s house made salad dressing seems to be the richest of all — soy sauce, sesame seeds, ginger, egg, rice vinegar and onions blended together for that tangy yet sweet dressing that made Tampopo’s side salads a nice dazzle to your meal.
On Reddit, Moria warned home cookers that recipes “may need some adjustment for home cooking.” He noted that “Ito-san was always the one who tasted the dressing and made the final adjustment” and in the past when he shared the recipe with people they had a hard time replicating it at home.
Moria also has posted “After Tampopo” stories, with such chapters as “The Final Month Was Not Normal,” “How It Ended For Me” and “A Good Ending.”
Much on the Reddit post had specific how-to questions (cuts of meat, where to get ingredients, etc.) from readers who also thanked Ito for his kindness. Wrote one poster, “Recipes are a very special part of community and good recipes are sacred!! Please deliver another thank you to Ito-san as well! This is beyond kind.”
While what was once called Little Tokyo has mostly emptied out (Cho Cho’s, Tampopo and Sapporo Ramen are all gone), there are signs of life. Xian Cool Noodles is slated to open in the booth next to where Tampopo was ensconced for more than 30 years. That space housed Yume Ga Arukara udon before its 2024 move to the street facing space it shares with Itzakaya Ittoku. Xian Cool Noodles has had a “coming” sign posted in the Lesley Building lobby since last spring. A recent phone call to the Shaanxi-style eatery yielded a comment from management that it is primed to open next month.
A stronger
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