What is Ramen?

Now that I think about it, some of you might not know what Ramen actually is. Let me fill you in, you poor, deprived soul.

Ramen (ラーメン or 拉麺, rāmen, IPA: [ˈɺaːmeɴ], is a Japanese noodle dish that originated in China. It tends to be served in a meat-based broth, and uses toppings such as sliced pork (チャーシュー, chāshū), dried seaweed (海苔, nori), kamaboko, green onions, and even corn. Almost every locality or prefecture in Japan has its own variation of ramen, from the tonkotsu ramen of Kyūshū to the miso ramen of Hokkaidō.

So there's your dictionary definition. For a more down-to-earth idea of what Ramen is, I'll put that into my own words.
Ramen is indeed a noodledish, I'm not to sure about where it originally comes from, but it would seem that China is indeed the place. If you've seen much anime, you'd know what ramen is, especially if you've seen Naruto. Ramen is, in my opinion, a dish that can be summarised by its three constituents: The Noodles, The Soup and The Toppings. The thing that tends to vary the most, and is thus in my opinion the most important thing in regards to taste is the soup. You can have pretty much as many types of Soup as you can think of, but the main ones are Shio (Salt), Tonkotsu (Pork-Bone), Shouyu (Soy-Sauce) and Miso (umm...Miso).
The most important thing about ramen in comparison to other foods, in my opinion, is the fact that ramen has...a certain culture about it. Whether going into a massive ramen chain store in the Melbourne CBD, or ducking into a tiny corner shop in the backstreets of akihabara, all good ramen places have a certain...something that I have never found anywhere else.