The Guy Behind Hayes Valley's Ramen Truck Looked to New York, Tokyo Street-Food Vendors

Shirohige Ramen-Ya

No, wise-ass, this is not Fred Sanford.

​We have more details about Shirohige Ramen-Ya, the Japanese ramen truck debuting in Hayes Valley tomorrow. Its 28-year-old proprietor is Jackson Scarlett, a New York refugee who works a day job at a nonprofit film distributor in S.F. Scarlett fell in love with ramen -- serious ramen -- last year, when he found himself unemployed, and with time on his hands to perfect noodle recipes. Though he's passed through Japan, Scarlett took inspiration from Manhattan's ramen craze. "I thought, why don't we have more ramen in San Francisco?" Scarlett also wanted to pay homage to yatai, Tokyo's mobile street-food vendors. "Street food is so democratic," he said.

Scarlett got a taco truck on loan from a friend, a special events license to prepare food, and found a source for fresh noodles (a source he's not ready to divulge). With the help of three (again, unnamed) friends -- one of whom currently cooks at Greens -- Shirohige Ramen-Ya will be cooking up noodles fresh tomorrow, and ladling out broths made from scratch. The ramen truck will park in the gravel lot at the corner of Hayes and Laguna, opposite Suppenküche, starting at 11 a.m. Sunday, too.

As for the design of the Shirohige Ramen-Ya logo - a round-faced gentleman with sleepy eyes and a white beard - Scarlett said it's from a photograph of an ederly Japanese traveler (shirohige means "white beard"). "Once I saw this guy, I had to use him," Scarlett said. "He's a little bit grumpy, a little tired." Pretty much how we're guessing Scarlett and his cook buddies will be feeling by the time Sunday evening rolls around.