rameniac's Profile
Shisen Ramen in Cerritos, and the state of SoCal tonkotsu ramen
asa can be a little up and down, depending on how busy they are and if kubo-san (the chef/owner) is manning the stove. he was in japan for a while but should be back these days. (i can't say for sure as i haven't gone in a while, not because of any particular reason, just haven't been around).
AYCE Crayfish in Covina. $10.
yea you have to buy tickets in advance, at the large furniture store.
AYCE Crayfish in Covina. $10.
haha all good. i've been wondering when people would catch on... and kinda hoping they wouldn't, since tickets are limited. thought it was only at burbank, at least the past few years. if they're doing it at other large furniture stores in LA now, that's great!
AYCE Crayfish in Covina. $10.
aawwwwww dang it. you gave out the last best-kept-secret we had left in LA. now every yelper and food blogger with a digital camera will be there. *commences tail cracking*
Finally! Great ramen comes to the Valley!
tomorrow is their official grand opening. i suspect t that today they were closed just to get their house in order.
another one?? RAMEN JINYA is here! studio city gets ramen, finally. and it's good. (nano-review)
is wednesday their official off-day? i spoke with the guy on the phone (although his english is not the greatest) and he seemed to indicate that their off day will be sunday, once the regular schedule is in effect.
japanese restaurants do often have a tendency to pick a random day of the week to close. to avoid further confusion, i'd simply stay tuned for the time being. i'll try to find out tomorrow!
another one?? RAMEN JINYA is here! studio city gets ramen, finally. and it's good. (nano-review)
first mottainai, now ramen jinya! i can barely keep up, but keep up i shall, as yet another ramen shop has opened up in LA. jinya in studio city has been soft-open since july 3rd; when i went they were still installing stuff to the furniture.
i have no bones about reviewing it early though, because frankly, the place rocks, a ramen shop in a similar vein to ramen california in torrance, with a full complement of organic side dishes and a healthy chicken soup namesake bowl.
traditionalists take note, however. the special on the day i went was a very authentic wafu tonkotsu ramen, and it's pretty much what you'd find in tokyo, loaded with bonito and even fish powder, which gives the soup a nice gritty texture. i'm digging this place for sure, and it's right near where i used to work. arrgh. if only it had opened a year ago lol...
http://www.rameniac.com/reviews/comments/jinya_studiocity/
*btw apologies to gourmetpilot, who beat me by like, hours posting a thread on this place, but i wanted to put the name of the restaurant in the title. check out his CH post for some nice pics as well!*
new (good) ramen shop alert: RAMEN MOTTAINAI in gardena (nano-review)
not sure about take-out, but i believe they're currently open until 10 or 10:30pm for the time being. they might stay open later, once they've settled in.
Finally! Great ramen comes to the Valley!
this place is excellent. they're still in their soft-open, however, so their hours are kind of off. (ignore the one-star yelp review by the yelper who got there 15 minutes before they closed and decided to bitch about it without even having tried the place).
new (good) ramen shop alert: RAMEN MOTTAINAI in gardena (nano-review)
nah the portions are normal-sized. there's a little story on the menu explaining their name, about how they use the best ingredients in nature and don't waste anything, or something like that.
new (good) ramen shop alert: RAMEN MOTTAINAI in gardena (nano-review)
so there's a brand new ramen shop in gardena; ramen mottainai in marukai pacific square. shops have been cropping up a-plenty lately, but this place is pretty legit. they actually do a kogashi (burnt) miso ramen. by charring the miso paste, the soup takes on this fragrant flavor. their shoyu-tonkotsu ramen is authentic as well, done in the tradition of a proper yokohama ie-kei shop. anyone interested in checking out what "ie-kei" ramen is all about can get a pretty accurate representation of the dish here. the place opened on july 1 and doesn't even have a sign up yet (it's in the southwest corner next to the udon/soba shop), but it's good enough for me to tell you to go and try it already. enjoy!
http://www.rameniac.com/reviews/comments/mottainai_gardena/
the london soho shoyu ramen awards
ah thanks! yea i had my eye on nagomi but couldn't make it over there in time. 3 of these shops i literally crammed in in one day, and fell victim to that darned break between lunch and dinner when japanese restaurants tend to take a siesta. hadn't heard of cocoro though, i'll def have to check it out.
the london soho shoyu ramen awards
hi all, i'm usually on the Los Angeles board, but after a few recent trips in which i ate as much ramen as i could find, i decided to post this little rundown. tried out six shops in the soho brewer st./wardour area (i'm sure i missed a couple at least - the japan centre being one of them) but anyway here's my take.
in a nutshell:
most authentic ramen:
RYO, which feels like a casual izakaya/bar come straight from tokyo. the ramen too is authentically (coincidentally) similar to sano-style ramen from an hour out of tokyo, with a delicate, crisp shoyu broth.
most authentic old school shoyu ramen:
TEN TEN TEI, with its stern chef and a deep, steeped shoyu ramen soup that would actually be semi-passable in japan, soup-wise.
most WTF were they thinking:
OSATSUMA, which is essentially a wagamama knockoff with a pretty generic menu. their noodles are actually not bad, though, compared to other places around.
the "stop pretending" award for japanese restaurant impersonation:
EATTOKYO - precisely because it's korean-run, the disclaimer outside the shop touting traditional japanese food made by japanese chefs is annoying. that and the instructions for how to make sushi posted behind the sushi counter. the noodles themselves are pretty bad, they only have gigantic portions, and they soak up the soup before you have a chance to finish them.
secretly chinese:
RAMEN SETO - the wonton ramen tastes suspiciously like any bowl of wonton noodle soup you'd likely find in chinatown just around the corner. not bad, just not ramen in the japanese sense of the word.
lifetime achievement award for being ok but kind of strange:
TARO - with ginger in the shoyu ramen and an overall kind of strange funk to the broth, it's decent, but i think something got lost in translation on the way to europe.
ON UK NOODLES IN GENERAL:
so overall, some of the soups are pretty serviceable, but it seems as though a lot of the ramen shops in the UK (taro, ryo, ten ten tei, i'm looking at you) use this kind of spongy fluffy noodle which leaves something to be desired. wagamama appears to be the ubiquitous option for ramen, but even they've never got their noodles right, which are far too floury and mealy to be good (kind of like hawaiian saimin, which is a whole different animal).
here are more details, photos, and extended reviews for each shop, if you're so inclined :)
http://www.rameniac.com/index/comments/rameniac_does_london/
ramen sadness
japan is a different game. with thousands of ramen shops everywhere, you can't exactly cut corners over there if you want to stay in business. here in the states, you can coast on the novelty factor of serving something "exotic" simply because the general public doesn't know much better.
Best ramen cities
i think by virtue of being larger and softer than hakata noodles, kumamoto-men tend to fill up the bowl and overwhelm the tonkotsu. to each his own tho.
Best ramen cities
there's PLENTY of good ramen to be had in tokyo that could easily take up your ten night stay. a good cross section of japanese ramen can be had in tokyo not only at the ramen museum (which tends to feature originator/influential shops) but at numerous other ramen parks around the city (and there are a lot). first avenue ramen street was already mentioned here i think, they've got a great ise-ebi ramen at keisuke gaiden there, also a branch of rokurinsha (if you don't want to go wait for hours at the original shop). also check out the ikebukuro gyoza stadium (in sunshine city) for some phenomenal versions of everybody's favorite side dishes: http://www.rameniac.com/index/comments/ikebukuro_gyoza_stadium/
Best ramen cities
i have yet to meet a bowl of kumamoto ramen that has really impressed me. mostly, the noodles they use tend to be more spaghetti-like than those in hakata, and the soup is milder. though if you like browned garlic in your tonkotsu, that's what the style is kind of known for.
kumamoto is great though for basashi (horse). if you're only in kumamoto for one night, i'd probably skip the ramen for that lol.
Best ramen cities
if you go to kurume, don't miss kurume taiho. rich, porky and gritty whereas the ramen in hakata tends towards a lighter, thinner tonkotsu. taiho is famous for "mukashii" or old style ramen, where tonkotsu ramen originated.
in hakata, ichiryu is by far the best yatai on the stretch of the nakasu river (where the largest concentration of hakata's famed "ramen carts" line up every night):
http://rameniac.com/reviews/archives/C65
Steamed Clams - Please help me find this restaurant
i think hooters has steamed clams in a bucket too...
First Peak: New England Style Seafood Shack Finally Available in LA: BP Oysterette in Santa Monica
i've been away from CH for a while, but i can always count on you guys to come up with something new and hot when i drop in. hungry cat has been as close as i could come up with for new englandy-seafood, ever since menemsha closed. this looks like it could be a real winner. thanks wasabica!
does anyone remember RC Draft cola?
i have one bottle of RC draft left, enshrined in a glass display in case of a global extinction-level-event.
Did anybody go to the 1st annual L.A. KBBQ cook-off & Food Fest?
moo dae po won (see above).
Did anybody go to the 1st annual L.A. KBBQ cook-off & Food Fest?
that new place, moo dae po, won. after park's and flip's, i was already stuffed, so i think i'll have to hit up the actual restaurant soon!
molecular gastronomy ramen?! wth?! oh yes, RAMEN CALIFORNIA is here. (review w/ pics)
molecular gastronomy doesn't mean turning ham and eggs into a lollipop. it's not a genre of food, it's merely the application of scientific principles and techniques to cooking to yield precision results based on a knowledge of chemical processes. nakamura uses devices (medical equipment in fact) to regulate the ph and alkaline content of the water in his soup. he uses liquid nitrogen when regular freezing processes won't do. the chicken are selected based on age practically down to the day, and the farmer's market vegetables are cooked to a very exacting state based on temperatures and times - it's not just "bring this to a boil" or "blanche that."
if you're looking for ferran adria-style fireworks however, i'd say creating a cheese tofu and having it delibrately melt into the soup to invoke a kotteri tonkotsu texture is pretty spectacular, thought out, and worthy of a heston blumenthal.
i suspect that a lot of the people who DO love ramen california love it for the above reasons, the DETAILS. it's not "oh the soup isn't flavorful enough" or "this tiny bowl isn't worth XX dollars." it's different strokes for different folks, and like i said, you really either get it or you don't.
i'll concede DrBruin one point - comparing ramen california to cup noodles is about as valid as comparing it to a bowl of pho or some hot water and flour, if simply because it's so different that you can't compare it to much at all.
molecular gastronomy ramen?! wth?! oh yes, RAMEN CALIFORNIA is here. (review w/ pics)
ramen california is like a great experimental rock album. if you get it, you get it. if you don't, you don't. those that do, do get what they pay for. the end.
is there anything similar to ante's in san pedro (croatian/dalmatian cuisine) around town?
ah sorry! my title was a bit of a grammatical fail. i meant anywhere in LA or southern california. i called it "ante's in san pedro" simply because i almost never have any other reason to go down there. XD
is there anything similar to ante's in san pedro (croatian/dalmatian cuisine) around town?
ante's is fun, but wondering if there are any alternatives for dalmatian cuisine within driving distance. so far haven't been able to turn up much, but if anyone knows of a menu with good octopus salad, fish soup, or any mediterranean-style grilled whitefish dishes (any italian or greek come close? if you know what i'm talking about...) similar to what might be found along the adriatic coast of croatia, i'm all ears! thanks!
molecular gastronomy ramen?! wth?! oh yes, RAMEN CALIFORNIA is here. (review w/ pics)
just to clarify, nakamura willl be back in early july, and intends to be present in LA as much as possible (in case anyone was worried he was going back to japan for good).
The Birth of a New Era? Delicious and Healthy California-style Ramen using Seasonal, Local Vegetables at Ramen California [Review] w/ Pics!
lol exile, you went back twice already in the past 3 days? rockin'!
