James Chant + Matsudai’s cult ramen
Matsudai started in 2019 as a creative outlet for founder James Chant and since then has delivered tens of thousands of ramen kits to every corner of the UK, been celebrated by culinary heroes as Jay Rayner, Tim Anderson and Melissa Thompson and James has gone on to open a flagship ramen restaurant in Grangetown, Cardiff.
We sat down with James to find out a little more of the story behind Matsudai, why ramen and where we should eat the next time we’re in Cardiff.
Why ramen? What drew you to the flavours of ramen and led you to opening up Matsudai in Cardiff?
Ramen was a total accident – if it hadn’t been ramen, it would’ve been music for tv/film, or maybe some kind of graphic design. It was 2019 and I had been working in music for pretty much my whole life and had just had enough. I was spending too much time with my head in a spreadsheet and, having just turned 40, was in a creative rut. Cooking ramen at home was plugging that gap to some extent but I’d never set foot in a professional kitchen at that point, so when I was asked to run a pop-up at a small local venue I was excited by the idea but really had very little ambition for it beyond feeding some friends and family as a one-off. But the world had other ideas, and here we are.
What does Matsudai mean? Can you tell us a little more about what’s behind the name?
The genesis for the name was my literally dreaming the phrase ‘Forever and Ever, Ramen’ one night whilst nodding off in bed. I told my wife, who usually tells me I’m an idiot for my wordplay, but she was impressed so I wrote it down. Not long later I realised that it was a terrible name for a ramen endeavour so I started looking at Japanese synonyms for forever and Matsudai appeared. It has familial connotations and is similar to eternity. I really like these attributes but really I just love how it sounds. I never wanted to use a Japanese word, as I wanted to do something that was uniquely Welsh, British, and not a cheap, cliched neon anime copycat of things in Japan, but the name was just RIGHT.
Tell us a little about the flavours behind your latest kit. What does the Halen Môn salt bring to the bowl?
Halen Món salts add a natural umami, warmth, and savoriness to the bowl. We use their smoked water in the tare too, which gives the whole thing a depth and complexity we otherwise wouldn’t be able to achieve. There’s a total purity, a lack of chemicals, and a sweetness which just tastes like high-quality. They really are the best.
If you’re cooking late on a Tuesday night after work, what’s your go-to, quick and speedy supper?
Fridge bingo rice!! I wish it were a little complicated, but some really nice rice cooked simply in the rice cooker with whatever bits of veg and protein are in the fridge. The joy of being a ramen cook is that the freezer is also always stocked with ludicrous quantities of delicious goodies too, so if there’s nothing in the fridge I’ll always have soboro (like a spicy Japanese ragu), pork, tofu, some dumplings… basically, plenty of options in the freezer, and tons of seasoning options in the pantry. Even better is if we’ve had rice the previous day because then we can think about using the leftovers for egg fried rice!
We’ve got one evening in Cardiff for dinner, we had Matsudai for lunch. Where should we be heading for dinner?
Well, it would often be Hatsu Udon, Grangetown’s other brilliant noodle shop but if you’ve been to us for lunch you might find that there’s a bit too much menu overlap. If you can’t face that it’d either be Longa for incredible, modern Turkish food in a beautiful dining room; Hadramowt for Lamb Mandi, or Fowl & Fury on Cowbridge Rd for totally legit Nashville fried chicken.
Matsudai’s ramen kits are available here. You can pre-order our collaboration here.
