Ramen Setagaya.(Japanese restaurant)(Restaurant review)(Brief article)

Long known in the U.S. merely as a staple of dorm-room hot plates, ramen has now risen high enough in culinary estimation to have its own battles of braggadocio. When Ramen Setagaya, the first American outpost of a Japanese chain, opened in June, its manager provoked food-blog controversy by claiming that its broth was more authentic than that of the current ramen heavyweight, Momofuku (which, defenders pointed out, never professed to serve "traditional" ramen, anyway). All this over noodles and broth? Still, there seems to be an insatiable appetite for the stuff. On a recent evening, the line to get a seat on one of Setagaya's stools was twenty deep. "It's like ramen 'Iron Chef,' " one waiting diner said, peering through the plate-glass window at the open kitchen and the clouds of steam engulfing the cooks. (In fact, the founding chef, Tsukasa Maejima, has competed in a televised cooking competition in Japan.)

Once inside, it felt like a tiny slice of Tokyo. Laminated menus were printed in both English and Japanese; the flat-screen TV on one wall noiselessly broadcast gleefully bright Japanese variety shows; the kitchen staff shouted out orders of cha-shu (roast pork) and oyako-don (chicken and egg served over rice). There's ...