 Marumatsu Bussan founder Shūsui Matsumura claims that he came up with the new product name menma, a portmanteau of "ramen" (拉麺) and "machiku" (麻竹), the type of bamboo from which it is made, after seeing it served atop ramen in Yokohama Chinatown.This name could not be trademarked but gradually became accepted as the common name for the condiment as its popularity grew in Japan.Menma is not, however, customarily eaten atop noodles in Taiwan; the vegetable toppings on the popular noodle dish Zhajiangmian, 菜碼 (Pinyin