Hakata Ikkousha

I think it's safe to say Costa Mesa is up there with Torrance and Little Tokyo as ramen house hotbeds.  Santouka, Kitakata, Ramen Yamadaya are at the top.  I'll throw Shin Sen Gumi in there, but it's technically in Fountain Valley.  Now Hakata Ikkousha can be added to that list. But at a starting price of $9 a bowl, it is sure to be the most expensive bowl in town.  Like any good Japanese restaurant, the place is frickin' small and you can expect to wait for a table.  It's not a horrendous wait (at least for me that night it wasn't), but I've heard there can be a line out the door even before the place opens for lunch.

Hakata like all the other aforementioned joints specialize in tonkotsu ramen.  Like Shin Sen Gumi, you can customize your broth and noodles.  You can also add extra toppings for few bucks here and there.  If you went to town, you could easily end up with a bowl over $30!  Lo-Ma Linda with Big Head TalksAlot's mini me in tow joined me for a first time visit here.

Table side accoutrements.  Can I say that in a Japanese restaurant?  I'm sure there's a better word for it, multiple syllables and probably ends in a vowel.  

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Ramen Yamadaya

My quest to find a more awesome ramen joint than Santouka always disappoints.  I swear Santouka must use MSG in their broth.  It's just way too tasty.  Somehow that's where every other places seems to fall short.  The Rock Dweller accompanied me here.  Usually when we dine together, it's difficult to pay attention to the food because we are usually talking each other's heads off and get so distracted.  So it was quite out of the ordinary, when it was the food itself that was distracting me from the conversation, and not in a good way!  

Yamadaya Ramen 3 kinds of chashu, dried seaweed, egg

So the ramen here isn't actually that bad.  The noodles were pretty standard.  The broth was fatty, salty, the usual.  Definitely not as tasty as Santouka.  But man oh man, they served me old ass chasu!  Like it had that old refrigerated made who knows how many days ago "aged" taste.  It was not pleasant.

Kara-Age Chicken
The chicken wasn't old tasting fortunately.  It was actually juicy, seasoned and fried well.  Was it the best kara-age I've ever had?  No, not really, but it hit the spot.

Would I go back to Ramen Yamadaya after they served me "too many days old chasu?"  I am a forgiving eater, so probably yes, but only if someone wanted to go here.  Heck, I've been back to places where I've had food poisoning.  For the time being, let's just say good ole food court ramen at Santouka still has my heart.

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Kintaro Ramen

Every city has its "Bests."  Best burger, best hot dog, best pizza, best brunch, best Italian, best sushi.  I think you get my drift.  Our short getaway to Vancouver was certainly an attempt to eat the best the city had to offer.  With its reputation for all that is Asian, mainly of "Ching Chong Chang" variety, that's Chinese for all you uneducated racists, we planned each meal in advance.  With only a few days to eat the city, we didn't want to waste prime gastric real estate.

Kintaro came highly recommended as one of the city's best ramen spots.  Time and time again, I am challenged to find a better ramen best than Santouka.  Even though it's "just" a chain, I find the broth there to be the richest and most flavorful.  Smooth Obturator complains that its take on ramen is too heavy.  I think that's precisely why I like it, a hot steamy bowl of liquid fat, masked in the deep flavors of salty Japanese crack.  It's addictive but you really can't eat too much of it or you'll go into acute renal failure and/or congestive heart failure.  I'm so fortunate to be young and unburdened by organ dysfunction, so bring it on!

Kintaro gives you the option of broth richness (light, medium rich) and pork fattiness (lean, fatty).  Of course Dumpling Man and Triple T opted for light and lean, while Smooth Obturator and I went with medium, but he went with the fatty chashu pork.

Shoyu Ramen light and lean
They're not joking with the "lean" chashu pork.  It tasted as dry as it looks.  The shoyu was good, but I like my ramen unadulterated.

Miso Ramen light and lean
Triple T was afraid it was going to be too salty as most miso ramens tend to be, but they did a good job at tempering the salt here.

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Daikokuya

Daikokuya makes up one of the Big 3 ramen joints in LA.  I already posted about Shinsengumi, which probably ties for 2nd place with Daikokuya in my opinion.  While I love their curly ramen noodles, I get more excited about the pork bowl than the ramen.  Also, the wait time is simply atrocious.  I thought I'd bypass a 30 minute to 1 hour wait by hitting up the Monterey Park location.  The place is even more hole-in-the-wall than the Little Tokyo location and just as crowded.  It's ok because I had lots to catch up on with Ho Bag to pass the time.

Ho Bag and I go waay back, back to the days when she actually wasn't a ho bag and to the days when I consumed carbs like a naughty diabetic.  I couldn't think of 2 people who were more different but got along so well.  Nowadays, you can find Ho Bag traipsing around the Big Apple living the "Sex in the City" life.  Let's just say she's definitely NOT Charlotte. 


Salad
The salad at Daikokuya is far from refreshing or light.  The dressing, which drenches the shredded cabbage beneath it, tastes heavy, rich, and slightly fishy.  I can only have a few bites before feeling overwhelmed.  I'll give it credit for being one-of-a-kind.


Shredded Pork Rice Bowl 
It is hands down one of the best pork rice bowls I've ever had.  The pork is either extremely tender or extremely fatty because every bite of it just melts in your mouth.  The sauce permeates through ever bite and wraps each rice kernel in a blanket of heavenly sweet umami flavor.  Big winner here!  Because we both ordered a combo of rice + ramen, I barely finished my rice bowl.  I took the leftovers home but left it in my car overnight.  What a waste!

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Hakata Ramen Shinsengumi

I'm actually not a fan of Shinsengumi's ramen.  I prefer Santouka by far and Daikokuya is not bad either.  I do like Shinsegumi for the other food options, that in combination with the ramen, make for a delicious meal.

Hakata Ramen
At Shinsegumi, they allow you the option of choosing your level of oil, salt, and noodle texture.  Usually I go medium for all of them, but I wished I had opted for more salt because my bowl of noodles was a bit on the bland side.  I'm not a huge fan of the noodles either.  When I think of ramen, I think of curly thick noodles.  The broth is definitely rich in porky-ness, but somehow lacks that tastiness that I enjoy at Santouka. 


Here the noodles are thinner and straight.  They just don't have that same oomph.  They do allow you to order extra portions of noodles to keep adding to your bowl of soup.  Some obese man sitting at the table behind me was jonesing for some diabetes because he had about 4 or 5 orders for extra noodles.

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