If you've never seen the Japanese movie "Tampopo" it's calling to you. Comedy. "spaghetti western" search for best noodles. classic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampopo
Inspired by Claire and the Bon Appetite team, I did some googling.
Sun Noodle factory (which appears to be authentic with 9/10 top ramen shops using their noodles) uses silicon paddles on the end of the noodle cutter to generate a curly noodle. Alex the French Cooking Guy created his own at home version that worked well.
I wrote it up with the links to the videos and timecode here -
https://medium.com/@joshdance/how-to-make-curly-ramen-noodles-184950721d15
Having slurped my way around some of the best Ramen Tokyo has to offer, I can assure you curly noodles are not authentic. The boxed instant Ramen noodles curl because they have been dried and tightly bound in their packaging.
David Chan's Momofuko Cookbook details all of the separate Ramen ingredients, including fresh Alkali noodles. I recommend.
Harold McGee came up with a good method for making ramen noodles: home:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/dining/15curious.html?_r=0
Like many Asian varieties of wheat noodles, they are made with an alkaline-treated dough, which gives them their distinctive chewy texture and savory flavor. They might be a little wiggly, but not curly -- I think very curly noodles are caused only by the packaging technique for instant ramen. Ramen shops in Japan would definitely use fresh noodles, though.
Here's some fun side-research: a slide show from the NY Times Dining section on "How to Eat Ramen." If you're cooking ramen soup, these photos could be handy to reverse-engineer the techniques for making/assembling it. If nothing else, it's food entertainment! http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/12/18/dining/20131218-RAMEN.html
If you type "authentic ramen recipe" into your search engine (Google, etc.) you'll get a list of several reputable web sites like Epicurious, Serious Eats, etc. who have recipes.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampopo
Sun Noodle factory (which appears to be authentic with 9/10 top ramen shops using their noodles) uses silicon paddles on the end of the noodle cutter to generate a curly noodle. Alex the French Cooking Guy created his own at home version that worked well.
I wrote it up with the links to the videos and timecode here -
https://medium.com/@joshdance/how-to-make-curly-ramen-noodles-184950721d15
David Chan's Momofuko Cookbook details all of the separate Ramen ingredients, including fresh Alkali noodles. I recommend.
Like many Asian varieties of wheat noodles, they are made with an alkaline-treated dough, which gives them their distinctive chewy texture and savory flavor. They might be a little wiggly, but not curly -- I think very curly noodles are caused only by the packaging technique for instant ramen. Ramen shops in Japan would definitely use fresh noodles, though.