By Attorney Robert T. Torres
For Variety

WHAT is the difference between soba and ramen? I don’t know. But what I do know is that many a local college student has survived on this good stuff while waiting for the semester’s grant check from the scholarship office. Or it would take us through the cold winter days even in Southern California because anything below 73 degrees for Pacific islanders would be good reason to warm up with a noodle meal.
The other night as Miku practiced with his chopsticks at Mitsue’s I wondered what he and Niki Rae would remember from our dinner, if anything. I asked myself if they noticed the Japanese family who came in and started off their dinner with small glasses of tuba samplers. I thought that they might have noticed the straws sticking out of the coconuts on the table of the tourist couple next to us, trying out the local juice. Somehow the place had it right with papaya coco appetizers and local hot pepper powder to go with dinner. It seemed too simple, during Golden Week, that these folks came for a meal at a small place along Beach Road.
In the time before the great development, there was a similar place in Chalan Kanoa. Reiko’s was just a small simple place on a quiet island. No air-conditioning then. A few small tables. A jukebox in the corner. It played the favorite records of the local boys from the village who passed for the village gang. “The Rats” was it? Each night local couples would stop by for a meal before catching a movie over at Matsumoto’s movie house. Or the party crowd would drop in for a post cha-cha contest at the Tapa Bar in Oleai or Happy Landing’s in Chalan Kanoa before heading home.
No one would tell you that the food at Reiko’s came close to what they served at the Continental Hotel in Garapan. You couldn’t even say that the menu had much more than a few choices. Soba with Spam. Soba with ham. Soba with eggs. For side dishes, lumpia and boiled egg. And if you really felt adventurous, cheeseburger. But on an island 20 years or so from seeing its first golden arches, nothing tasted better. For a mid-week dinner nothing would beat a meal at Reiko’s.
Somehow they had “it” — the formula of simple business success. Find a product, make it right and they will come. And boy did we come. Of course many may not have forgotten of the night that someone started a fight and it ended up with two guys getting stabbed, one of them died. One killing on an island of 10,000 was news. Now we have dozens still unsolved and we don’t seem to put much attention into it after the initial shock. But Reiko’s stayed on the scene, even competing with the Pacific Gardenia next door, until a typhoon finally did it in.
I’m sure today we could go down western Garapan and pay more than $20 for a noodle meal in some fancy hotel restaurant. But I wonder if we looked around our neighborhoods and homesteads whether we have any local joints like we had at Reiko’s. The strange thing is that our kids have the unique experience growing up here, knowing how to prepare soba meal that Emeril would put on his show and exclaim BAM! It’s in our blood. Take some soba or ramen and boil it. Get the soup ready with some beef or chicken stock. Drop in some chicken or beef. Add an egg. Garnish it with some ginger or “shonga’” and Tinian hot pepper. You know it’ll get you in the end.
Oh right, the difference between soba and ramen I asked. The traditionalists would tell you that soba is the thin noodle made from buckwheat flour served chilled with a dipping sauce or in a hot broth. Udon is the thick wheat noodle. Ramen is a Japanese dish which originated from China and is different because of the broth used and the toppings used. But see if Niki and Miku would care. All I know is that I’ll know what to put into a care package from home when they are in college, or when our boys in Iraq need a taste of home.