Ramen Hayatemaru in Torrance serving Hokkaido Ramen?

just came back.

doing my research beforehand, hayatemaru is a chain. not really familiar with what styles are in hokkaido but their original shop is in sapporo. they seem to be pretty average on tabelog, scoring 3s on nearly all their branches.

don't know if it's because it's new but service was slow, and i went there by myself.

they were out of gyoza.

ordered red miso ramen with agetama (fried egg bits?) + fried chicken.
the coating for the fried chicken tasted kinda old? (but the chicken was fresh, i guess.) it was decent.

red miso was really flavorful. thicker than mottainai. the noodles are imported from their factory in hokkaido and really absorb a lot of the soup. the agetama went really well, it was kinda like the tempura stuff they put in okonomiyaki. i guess if it's average in japan it's a very good in the US, even for the LA area.

i'm not sure if a thick hearty broth like that will go over well in a hot place like LA, i can imagine it really hitting the spot on a cold snowy day, the kind of day that never happens here.

i'd go back, but i might wait a few weeks.

kainzero in Los Angeles Area

Ramen Hayatemaru in Torrance serving Hokkaido Ramen?

i was trying to find this place when they put up the sign a month ago, but apparently it was still komatsu and closing down. =(

definitely sounds interesting, i'll try and stop by this week.

kainzero in Los Angeles Area

LA's Best Ramen?

tried it last saturday, pretty good. the tonkotsu shio was much lighter than mottainai and yamadaya. it was more in line with zenya but with more flavor than zenya.

ufo gyoza (hane gyoza) was excellent, delicious when hot but if it gets cold it tastes terrible.

they also have chicken broth ramen. might give that a try next.

kainzero in Los Angeles Area

Japanese Markets?

there are also mitsuwas in little tokyo and santa monica.

the big marukai in gardena is fun to go to but i'm only saying that because i'm in torrance.

kainzero in Los Angeles Area

LA's Best Ramen?

parking sucks, but i liked the tomato basil tsukemen.

kainzero in Los Angeles Area

LA's Best Ramen?

those are my top 3, though tsujita is good too but i don't like waiting a long time for it.

5 years ago, out of those 4, only santouka existed and the top 3 was probably something like santouka/shinsengumi/daikokuya. and santouka is a chain found in vancouver and japan as well.

mottainai: sapporo + white bomb
tsujia: ramen (chashu if you like meat)
santouka: shio (chashu if you like meat)
yamadaya: all-stars

kainzero in Los Angeles Area

Butcher Shops?? - South Bay area

these guys are pretty good. most of their pre-cut stuff is asian style, but i've bought whole pork bellies from them (no skin, though).

don't know about veal or dry aged steaks.

kainzero in Los Angeles Area

Best sushi in Torrance?

haru is korean. if you like gimbap it's great. i've never had their rolls, just the takeout gimbap.

of the places i tried in torrance, i'd go with kanpachi. $35 omakase and it's all decent quality.
i used to like ikko but they closed down.
i tried sen nari and didn't like the rice.
i also tried miura and i dunno, i just didn't feel like it was really that good.

kentaro looks cool though, maybe i'll try it sometime.

kainzero in Los Angeles Area

Okonomiyaki for SF hound

for me it still depends on the restaurant itself, more than the style.

i ate at a random place in okonomiyaki mura in hiroshima, but it wasn't even on the same level as micchan, also in hiroshima and one of the more famous restaurants along with hassho. and both were much better than the one-time otafuku pop-up stand at mitsuwa serving hiroshima-style.

i also thought that gaja, gottsui, and doya doya were better than the random okonomiyaki store i hit up on the top floor of parco in ikebukuro in tokyo.

if i'm not mistaken you can get hiroshima-style at gaja too. =)

kainzero in Los Angeles Area

Okonomiyaki for SF hound

i prefer doya doya myself.

gaja is the only place that's DIY (worth trying, though you can also ask them to cook it for you) and good portions, but it's expensive unless you hit it up during happy hour. also gaja has monjayaki which you can't get anywhere else.

had gottsui but i felt like it was a bit expensive, like gaja prices for doya doya portions. and since i live in south bay i hate driving and parking in santa monica. =) fyi gottsui is not hiroshima style, it's osaka style. i think it tasted better than gaja though.

kainzero in Los Angeles Area

Soba-Ya in Torrance

the pop-up only has 2 menu items, a mushroom seiro soba and a pecan soba. i had the mushroom one. it was good but kinda pricey, and i haven't had soba very often so i couldn't tell the difference between this and a soba that wasn't hand-cut. sorry for such a terrible review, lol.

soba-ya does seem pretty cool though. i'd like to eat there more often and try their regular noodles. i liked the taiyaki.

kainzero in Los Angeles Area

Sumo mandarins

sumo is simply the brand name for dekopon.

kainzero in Los Angeles Area

Looking for recommendations in Tokyo

thanks to everyone for the help! unfortunately things didn't quite work out the way i wanted to, especially because the latter half of my trip did not have internet access (!!!) but i did hit up a few spots.

silverjay's rec for tobu sakana was great. i went with my japanese friend and he pretty much ordered everything. i don't know which fish he ordered but it was all great. for me the only question mark was the eggplant which was really watery and not to my taste.

teppanyaki ranma was closed for lunch twice; once on the 23rd and again on the 3rd so i wasn't able to try teppanyaki.

sushi: i was treated to sushi by a friend of mine at a place near kanda station. any sub 1万円 sushi place seems to be worlds better than any sub $100 place in LA.

tsukemen: had it twice. one was at hiroshima tsukemen buchiuma in yotsuya; the other was tsukemen yasubee at takadanobaba. both were pretty good.

udon: tsurutontan in roppongi, pretty good, though i think the curry udon i got was a little goopy and my dairy intolerance wouldn't permit me to try the cream udon. also tried basashi for the first time here and it was great!

youshoku: i feel like all the hamburgers i tried were, in the end, hamburgers. i did manage to try meat yazawa and it was pretty good but i don't know if it's worth waiting an hour for. finally got to try hayashi rice somewhere in roppongi (in the building with the konami store) and it was pretty good.

ramen: went with hakata jangara ramen at the top floor of ikebukuro. it was decent. i don't think i can really appreciate assari-kei yet, perhaps i need to eat more of it.

yakiniku: ended up going to joujouen near okachimachi since i didn't have internet and couldn't look up where to go. it was actually really good, had the omakase 8000yen course. in particular the kalbi was great.

others: a friend took me to korean food in shinokubo which was... okay, comparable to LA. the hotteok stand was pretty good though. also had indo curry tabehoudai in shinjuku, pretty good for the price at 1200 yen. one of the big surprises for me was an izakaya (shinshu) in hakuba, the ski resort i stayed at. the tofu salad was amazingly creamy and delicious.

i unfortunately did not have time to get tonkatsu and there were many times when i was too full for dinner at the usual time, so i had a lot of late night konbini bentos.

again thanks to everybody for the recommendations, though i apologize that i wasn't able to make use of all of them. hopefully i'll be back to try them again later!

kainzero in Japan

Favorite South Bay Sandwich Shop?

Rinaldi's is great! Love that place!

Ironically it was the first real sandwich shop I've tried so everything else seems to fall short in comparison. Over the last few weeks, I've eaten at Mr. Pickle at Torrance Crossroads, Sandwich Blvd. near Western and Torrance, and the Tropicuba Cafe on Vermont and Carson and they've all seemed to fall short...

kainzero in Los Angeles Area

Looking for recommendations in Tokyo

huh, for whatever reason, google gave me akabanenishi instead of akabanebashi.　that makes it even easier since i can hit it up on the way to shimokita.

@silverjay: i found your old post with all your recs! i'll take a look at it, though i'll be solo during that time and i'm not too sure i want to eat in such a festive atmosphere by myself with my awful level of japanese. =)

kainzero in Japan

Looking for recommendations in Tokyo

I don't mind going up to Akabanebashi... actually I'm quite bored of Tokyo so I really don't have much planned for the first few days except shopping in Shimokitazawa.
My stay is basically...
23rd-25th Tokyo
26th-27th Nagano
28th - 4th (I think it's somewhere near Saitama, staying with a friend. But we'll probably be taking trips to Tokyo every day.)

Still working on compiling a list. If anything when I'm done I'd at least want to make a list so that other people can see it instead of getting the whole "use the search engine" line thrown at me. =)

kainzero in Japan

Looking for recommendations in Tokyo

i was actually thinking about cooking kurogewagyuu at the place where i'm staying, but i feel like with my skills i wouldn't be able to get as much out of it.

plus, i would want to go to teppanyaki for the experience and the complete meal, not necessarily just to eat good beef.

kainzero in Japan

Looking for recommendations in Tokyo

ah yeah, that's what it seems like now that i read the entirety of the tabelog entry.

well, that's no big deal. i wasn't sure i'd like chicken sashimi anyway. =)

but that teppanyaki ranma place looks good, i think i wanna give it a shot for lunch for sure.

for the dinner course I was looking at Kurodaya in Roppongi, but it seems to require a reservation and i'm really bad at conversation so i'd rather not, haha.

also, are there any manners i need to be aware of when i dine at these places?

kainzero in Japan

Mitsuwa to open in Irvine

I noticed a lot of business for Go Squared when I went a week or so ago but I also didn't try it. They were present during the Obon Festival as one of the booths serving Takoyaki and I don't remember it being remarkable, but it wasn't bad either and it beats chasing down Tanota's truck.

I liked Mochi Cream, it was just a tad too expensive for me.

kainzero in Los Angeles Area

Looking for recommendations in Tokyo

I think that anything accessible in the Yamanote Loop will be good, which still leaves a large area. I'll be staying near Ueno for a bit before moving to Nagano for a ski trip and then staying somewhere closer to Saitama but still plan to take trips to Tokyo.

So far I've got a lot of good recommendations so I'm thankful. In terms of plans I'm pretty wide open--my experience with traveling has led me to just list a bunch of stuff I want to do and do it as I go down the list; the only real event so far is a concert in Shibuya afternoon on Christmas Eve. I might end up only going to 3 or 4 restaurants despite a list of like 30.

kainzero in Japan

Looking for recommendations in Tokyo

What did you get at Meat Yazawa? I was looking more at the hamburger than the steak.

Thanks for the recommendations. =)

kainzero in Japan

Looking for recommendations in Tokyo

Hmm, I might do that... go with a friend and get a high quality one and a medium quality one and compare. Plus I can write a report for you guys so I don't look so selfish. =)

I'm sure most people can tell difference between a Porsche and an Aston Martin, but the katsu experience analogy here is me having the experience of driving an old Corolla and a not as old Camry. =)

kainzero in Japan

Looking for recommendations in Tokyo

It's not that I take Tabelog with a grain of salt; it's more like, there are a ton of restaurants between the 3.2-4.2 range, and in my experience all of them have been very good so I feel like that by choosing only the top ones that I could be missing out on some favorites or something that's closer to my taste even though it's not technically the highest quality or best reviewed. I remember that last year, someone wrote a post here about the 3 most well-known places in Hiroshima for okonomiyaki. I used it to choose Micchan which was superb but not among the highest rated.

Tagano looks great so I'll give it a try. Thanks for the recommendation!

kainzero in Japan

Looking for recommendations in Tokyo

Tsukemen's been popping up at a lot of the spots in LA recently. I think they also offer it at Mottainai and Tonchan, and there's a specialty tsukemen shop that opened up in Hollywood as well.

One of the reasons why Menya Kissou is on my list is because it enjoyed a reputation on this board and on blogs as a phenomenal ramen place, but I heard that their real specialty is tsukemen...

kainzero in Japan

Looking for recommendations in Tokyo

Well, if you tell me Butagumi is reaaaaaaly good, I'll go. =) I don't mind paying a lot as long as I get the feeling that I'm getting my money's worth.

Looking at the menu, I'm not sure it'd be worth it for me to splurge. Can you really tell the difference between Iberico pork and the limited Tokyo X pork? If I lived there and I could go often I'd love to compare the differences, but since I can probably only go once I'd have to take you guys up on good faith =)

I'd like to use pictures to compare but Tonkatsu always looks the same, it just tastes different!

kainzero in Japan

Looking for recommendations in Tokyo

Most of the sushi recs here I've seen are for high end sushi or for Tsukiji, in which Sushi Dai is the main recommendation. I've read through the thread asking for cheap sushi but their price range was more around 2000-3000yen. Sushi Dai is tempting but I think that going to Tsukiji on Christmas morning will be a bad idea. 2 years ago I went to Sushi Zanmai and I thought that it was fantastic value; fish like that in LA would cost $50-$60 more.

Searching for Tonkatsu gives me a lot of old results, specifically Tonki in Meguro. I'm wondering if anything's changed; on the LA board, what's hot in one month can be cold the next month, so reading reviews for places 11 years old.

For ramen, I've only seen Menya Kissou recommended... though there are some others, like Ivan Ramen PLUS, or even just a general recommendation to wander through Waseda. I guess to be more specific, I'm looking for unique Tokyo ramen. Most of the ramen restaurants in LA are tonkotsu/Kyuushuu style, the lone exception being Santouka's Asahikawa-style (which still has tonkotsu).

So far on my list I have...

Kanemasu (grabbed from an Izayaka recommendation)
http://r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1313/A131302/13002243/

Meat Yazawa (all the pictures looked really good)
http://r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1316/A131603/13042320/

Tonkatsu Maruichi
http://r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1315/A131503/13017765/

Tonki, Meguro
http://r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1316/A131601/13002040/

Smokehouse Tera (Smoked meats in Tokyo! Gotta try!)
http://r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1318/A131814/13025807/

A&G Diner
http://r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1306/A130603/13120483/

Torishige
http://r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1303/A130301/13001306/

I'm still looking at places so I'll continue to add to my list; just thought I'd ask here if there was any places that people like that aren't necessarily popular on Tabelog.

kainzero in Japan

Looking for recommendations in Tokyo

I think I saw that restaurant on an episode of Gamecenter CX! Thanks for the rec, I'll definitely add it to the list.

I've made it before at a restaurant here so I'm not *terrible* at making it but I'd probably need some assistance. =)

kainzero in Japan

Looking for recommendations in Tokyo

I'm planning a trip to Tokyo in late December and I'm looking for places to eat (obviously!).

I'm okay at Japanese (I took the JLPT N2 yesterday, though I probably bombed the listening section) and I can roughly read Tabelog, but I feel like it's kinda dry just going down a list and picking the one with the best rating. All of the food looks good! I also watch a lot of Japanese TV and it seems like every place is good and every place has some sort of specialty item that's super delicious. Perhaps I just watch too much TV.

So, I thought I'd ask here to see if people have personal favorites.

What I want to do is gather a list and then just plan it later... so restaurants requiring no reservation will help if I have to do it days/weeks in advance. I'm also going the week before New Year's and I expect lots of places to be closed, so I think it's better to have a giant list and not go to all of them. =)

Anyway, I'm looking for the following
-Sushi (lunch, preferably under 5000 yen)
-Wagyu Teppanyaki (planning on this being the most expensive meal; limit is probably 15000 yen. There is no necessity for A5, if it's good it's good)
-Monjayaki
-Ramen (ate at Menya Kissou last year. Wondering if I should go back again this year or try another place. Jiro is on the list but I've heard it can be cultish and people get mad if you don't follow the rules.)
-Tonkatsu (last year I ate at a chain and it thoroughly beat the pants off of anything I've had in LA. now I want to push the limits.)
-Youshoku: Hamburgers, both western-style and Japanese; hayashi rice; Japanese curry
-Soba
-Gyoza
-Random sweets
-Yakiniku

Also if there's some food that I've left out but is worth trying, please let me know! I think there are enough Izakaya and High-End sushi threads out there that I've done a fair amount of searching through.
I value personal experience more than picking off a chart, so if you can please tell me about your experience. I will also pick a fair amount off of Tabelog anyway. =)

Thanks!

kainzero in Japan

Difference in rice cooker brands

it might be a little bit expensive but i'd go for a computerized model. i'm not sure what names are out there but they're called things like "neuro-fuzzy," "micom," etc. they're easier to clean because they'll never burn the rice, which i find is the most annoying thing to clean. all of the computerized models are hinged though. i don't think you can steam foods inn them either, but you can make bread in them. =)

if you're cooking brown rice you probably want one with a brown rice setting. brown rice takes longer to cook, so you would have to press to cook twice on a normal rice cooker even with the extra water, and that takes away the convenience... i don't see why you wouldn't use a pot instead, at that point.

kainzero in Cookware