Later, she would discover that the mood lifting effects from a well-crafted bowl of ramen come from the way the soup’s symphony of ingredients act in concert to trigger our tongues’ umami receptors, the taste buds for all things savory release dopamine and serotonin like so much molecular brain candy. But it did.”Ī native of Columbia, Tennessee, Sarah had found that her ultimate comfort food was a raft of fresh Chinese wheat noodles floating atop a bowl of hot Japanese broth, a multicultural dish from the get-go. I didn’t understand then why that particular food made me so happy. “I sat down in a miserable mood,” she recalls, “and stood up in an excellent mood.
Sarah doesn’t yet realize it, but she’s about to go otaku - obsessed-nerd-enthusiast - for all things ramen. Sarah orders a bowl: a dining decision that will prove life changing. The dish he described: something called Tonkotsu style ramen. But, instead, Sarah kept her cool and took her grumpy mood out to lunch, to a Japanese place she had read about in the L.A. California dreaming could sometimes make a creative mind want to do some California screaming. Wind back to Los Angeles, early 2000’s, and zoom in on Sarah having a bad day - up all night working on some commercial only to have her creative efforts summarily dismissed in the morning by some producer. “ Tonk-what-su broth? You mean you just want bones?” The words came from the lips of Sarah Gavigan, now head chef and owner of Nashville’s Otaku Ramen, and went into the ears of the blinking, befuddled butchers at Porter Road. “How much for pork bones? I would like to make Tonkotsu broth.” On or about December 2010, the ramen republic - the idea that it’s okay to be inspired by, learn from, and honorably craft another culture’s signature dish - made its first known tentative inroads into Nashville.
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