Apple Pan Hickory Burger

The Apple Pan's signature burger: The Hickory Burger

The Apple Pan restaurant in West LA opened in 1947 and barely anything has changed since, except the prices. Seemingly frozen in time like some back-lot period set, The Apple Pan looks like a cute little ranch-style cottage on the outside and the old-fashioned horseshoe-shaped countertop on the inside still only seats about twenty. The owners have resisted any overture to change — it’s still owned by the same family and they’ve never expanded, never added a fancy Micros POS system, never put a kobe beef burger on the menu, never even nodded in the direction of modernity. The menu is slight but timeless, offering only a couple of signature burgers (the Steak burger and the Hickory), a tuna salad sandwich, an egg salad sandwich, fries, and a slew of pies including, natch, apple.

The Apple Pan is a West LA institution.

I hadn’t eaten at the Apple Pan in probably ten years, but on a whim I went a couple of weeks ago, the day after I returned from Costa Rica in fact. I was craving simple food, American food. And as I was cruising by, hungry as all hell, the Apple Pan caught my eye and I squealed into the nearest parking spot on Pico Boulevard. I hustled up to the counter and stopped short; the counter was totally full. But luckily the moment I entered the server (energetic older dude with a serious but friendly demeanor) slapped down a check in front of a departing, burger-filled customer and I had but a couple of minutes of wait-time before I slid into the swivel stool at the burger trough.

The fries were a highlight of the meal!

I ordered a Hickory burger, some fries, and a Coke. The soda came in a can, which my server plopped down next to a paper cone set into a stainless steel pedestal — my drinking glass. A cardboard plate piled high with piping hot French fries hit the counter seconds later and my guy flipped a bottle of Heinz in his hand and asked, “ketchup?” I assented and with a hipster-bartender flourish he banged out a puddle of ketchup onto another, smaller cardboard plate.

The fries were excellent and addicting. They were unseasoned and I definitely needed a generous sprinkle of salt, but they tasted fresh and richly “potatoey”. The fries were crisp, crunchy, and delicious. Perfect fries are hard to find, but these were delightful. I scarfed in about 37 seconds. By which time my burger arrived, wrapped in paper, hot and savory.

It looks like it's a sixty-five years old...because it is!

The old-fashioned counter burger was thin and coarsely-ground. It was beefy and flavorful, although perhaps not as tender as I would have liked and a bit under-seasoned, like the fries. The Tillamook cheddar cheese was tasty, the pickles added some nice sour crunch, and the mound of fresh iceberg lettuce was crisp and inviting. The hickory sauce was pretty much just tomato puree with a touch of brown sugar and smoke, the most rudimentary of barbecue sauces, but it worked beautifully and made up for the absent tomato slice. The sauce was slightly tangy, slightly sweet, slightly smokey. The burger was delicious, maybe a little on the small side. I could have used a few more bites!

My only caveat was that the bun was squishy and crumbly. It didn’t hold up well to the moistness of the sauce or the lettuce. Halfway through eating the burger it started falling apart into gooey, cheesy, tomatoey chunks. Delicious chunks to be sure, but chunks nonetheless. I ate every last chunk.

I’ll make another visit soon. I have yet to try any of the pies, and I’ve heard the egg salad sandwich has a magic all its own, so that’s on the list. Certainly I will visit again before another decade passes me by. But I suspect that even a decade from now, The Apple Pan will be unchanged. 

 

10801 W Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90064
Neighborhood: West Los Angeles

(310) 475-3585

Mario’s Restaurante in Jaco

He's OMNIVOROUS!

My step-cousin Carrie owns a condo in Jaco and she was kind enough to let Regina and me stay there while we were vacationing in Costa Rica. Jaco is a bit touristy, populated partly by a boisterous population of American expats and frequently flooded with tourists from all over Central, South, and North America. It’s pretty noisy at night down the main drag with all manner of cars and people and stray dogs and cars pumping music — much like any other tourist-centric beach town in any corner of the world. Regina and I were happy that the condo lay on the northern end of town, away from the clamor and drunken revelers. It was quiet where we were, conducive to relaxation and a restful type of vacationing.

When we travel Regina and I try to hunt down the local grub; it’s generally more honest, more affordable, and more representative of the locale and the people who live there. You’ll  see I posted a few other recommendations for restaurants in Jaco, if you find yourself in Costa Rica some day. Those are places Regina and I ferreted out on our own.

Excellent, garlicky langostinas!

Isaga: Further Adventures in Costa Rican Local Grub

This little "langostica" was fresh, cheap, and delish.

In our ongoing quest for local cheap eats, Regina and I keep our eyes peeled for places with a line out the door. Walking the streets of Jaco, Costa Rica last week we stopped at innumerable restaurants on the main drag to check out menus; it was a mixed bag, for sure. Mostly tourist traps with surprisingly high prices or bizarre mish-mashed menus featuring a combination of Costa Rican fare with, let’s say, Greek salad or anchovy pizza. And yeah, sure, I like Greek salad and anchovy pizza, but paying $40 for it while we’re in a foreign land seems a little strange. Also, given that most of the touristy places seemed near-empty on a Friday evening wasn’t heartening. Strolling half a block off the main drag we found the very-packed and lively Isaga, which had at least fifteen people waiting in line out front. They were all locals, by the look of the them. Suddenly our spirits lifted!

Creamy seafood "chowder" is packed full of mariscos!

Marea Alta Restaurant: Comida Tipico

Very fresh, very simple ceviche mixto.

On the Southern end of the town of Jaco, Costa Rica, where Regina and I spent a lovely week relaxing, exploring, sunning, and eating, we came across a restaurant called Marea Alta (high tide), a place that serves the relatively simple and hearty fare that everyday Costa Ricans eat, their comida tipico — “typical food”. Slightly more adventurous travellers might wander down here to the dwindling end of town, away from most of the over-priced and dubious tourist-and-expat-geared joints that clog the main drag, but the mainly-locals Marea Alta caters to the Ticos, the ethnic nomenclature that Costa Ricans affectionately dub themselves.

Costa Rican food, at least far from the capital of San Jose, is pretty simple really. Most plates center around rice and beans and usually feature a little cabbage and carrot salad as well as picadillo, a simple dish of stewed squash or other vegetables. Almost every plate also gets a wedge of limon, which refers to both a green-skinned and green-fleshed lime variety and another type of sour citrus which features a bright orange flesh (I suspect it’s a hybrid variety of lime and mandarin orange.) and a tart and fragrant juice.

Delicious grilled mahi-mahi.

Costa Rica Casado

At the moment I’m traveling in Costa Rica with Regina on our belated honeymoon. The day is nearly spent and the Pacific surf rushes and sighs outside the window of our rental condo in Jaco. I can nearly taste the sea it’s so close, and as I post this I take a final few sips of five-year aged rum. Sweet, deep, delicious.

This place, although touristy, has a real magic to it, and I’m dearly glad to have some time off and to be far away from work, from my real life, from Los Angeles. Two days in and my tan is developing nicely. I’m relaxed, my mind is clear (except for the happy fuzz imparted by the rum), and Regina lies next to me, slumbering happily. Still, being a techie geek as well as a chef means that even in a foreign land I have the means to share with you, loyal readers, my meals and my musings. iPad, wifi, and WordPress app. Huzzah!

Wherever we travel Regina and I query the locals and ask for food recommendations. No gringo food, no pizza, no bullshit sushi, and lord-help-me-now no fucking Kentucky Fried Chicken! The blender-wielding bartender at a tacky resort down the beach that apparently caters to a less-inquisitive clientele gave us a quizzical look when we reiterated the “no-gringo food” part of our travel-food creed, as if sussing us for intestinal fortitude. After a bit of prodding he gave up the name of El Rustico, a locals joint known for their Casado, which is like a cheap-and-easy working man’s buffet lunch. It’s down the main drag, maybe nine or ten blocks, turn right at the Pancho Villa restaurant, he says, you’ll see it.

En route we stopped and bought a pretty amazing agua fresca of sandilla (fresh watermelon juice) which we quaffed as we strolled the dusty main street of Jaco, dodging necklace hawkers, grown men on kids’ bikes, and mongrel dogs lazing on the sidewalk. It was still early, the street wasn’t yet crowded, the heat hadn’t yet peaked. We’d only flown in the previous night, arriving too late to explore and frankly too exhausted to do anything but shower and flop. This would be our first meal in Costa Rica. We were starving.

We found El Rustico adjacent to a desultory surfer-and-expat camping area, virtually empty but for two friendly dogs begging through the chainlink fence for scraps. The place was as casual as can be, but immaculate and inviting. The open-air dining room was almost filled with some thirty customers, not an obvious tourist or gringo among them. We waited but briefly before getting to the buffet. Rice, beans, chicken wings, fried fish, some sort of pork ribs, beef stew of some kind, shrimp, several salads, fried ripe plantains — a small but representative array of Costa Rican casual fare. A couple of colorful agua frescas in those self-circulating lemonade dispensers. A cooler case of sodas and bottled water.

We ordered a huge plate to share, plus two ice-cold bottles of water. The fried fish (probably snapper) was absolutely dynamite — crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside, very fresh and mild, excellent. We doused it with a little Lizano Salsa (the national all-purpose condiment like a slightly sweet A-1 sauce) and squeezed over it a bit of limon, an orange-fleshed and green-skinned sour lemon. Just delish. The chicken wings were also excellent, great crust, super-tender and moist. Miraculously neither the fish nor the wings were remotely greasy. And the rice and beans were perfect, the macaroni salad fair but tasty. By far our favorite dish was the picadillo, stewed minced zucchini with a bit of onion and garlic. So sweet and delicious, it was absolutely superb and positively addictive.

The one monstrous plate of food and our bottled water: nine bucks. Deal!

As we were leaving El Rustico a line of twenty or more people was queued up for this delicious buffet; a good sign of quality if ever I saw one. This was our first meal in Costa Rica. And it was a winner! More to come, lovely reader.

As they say here, “Pura Vida!”

Beverly Soon Tofu (with video!!)

This bubbling cauldron is filled with a delicious tofu potion!

I’m not really the best person to be reviewing Korean restaurants as I’m not Korean, have never been there, have never dated any Korean girls (for more than a night or two), and beyond the occasional batch of kimchee or bibimbap have rarely cooked it. Perhaps I should have solicited the advice of my pal and K-town expert Mattatouille, but time was pressing and my father needed, nay demaded, tofu. My Dad had expressed interest in the now-defunct Tofu Villa in West LA, and the only similar restaurant we (Regina and I) could think of was Beverly Soon Tofu in Koreatown. Maybe Matt could have steered us to some new, stellar, unheralded place, but BST is an old standby. A couple of decades ago BST introduced Los Angelenos to this particular subset of Korean comfort cuisine, embodied by the much-loved soon dubu jjiagae (soft tofu stew). Now I may not have an encyclopediac knowledge of Korean food and I have nothing to add about the authenticity of flavor or food preparation at Beverly Soon Tofu; however, I know a good restaurant when I eat at one. And Beverly Soon is a good one. This stalwart K-town favorite is as good as ever.

First Impressions: Tsujita LA Artisan Noodles

Delicious, al-dente noodles tsukemen style.

It was over a year ago when Regina and I first noticed that construction of a newish-modern retail building at the intersection of Sawtelle Blvd and Mississippi Ave, along the predominantly Japanese “Sawtelle corridor” of restaurants and little boutiques and izakayas, had been completed. The corner spot had been leased by a company out of Japan called Tsujita, and floor-to-celing posters had been pasted up in the windows. Brilliant color photos of giant bowls of luscious-looking ramen noodles proclaimed the dawning of an exciting new noodle revolution soon to occur on Sawtelle. Being the noodle-nuts that we are, Regina and I were stoked for this new upstart to open its doors. We have many favorite noodle joints in LA, and while we can appreciate the occasional attributes of Daikokuya, Orochon, Chin-Ma-Ya, Yamadaya, or Santouka, we probably love most-of-all Ramen-Ya on Olympic, not least because we live close-by but also because we are fans of the neighborhood in general, the colorful “Sawtelle corridor” being right around the corner. We wanted another killer noodle restaurant in West LA!

Regina used to live a couple of streets west of Sawtelle and our very first date was at Fu-Rai-Bo, the fun and funky izakaya (Japanese pub) just across the street from Tsujita, so we have a sentimental attachment to the neighborhood. Anyway, with the promise of a new and delicious noodle house opening right there, Regina and I waited with bated breath and growing hunger.

I had mixed feelings going in.

Sam Woo Bar-B-Q

Egg noodles in rich broth with wontons & char sui pork.

Sam Woo is a chain of a dozen restaurants across Southern California, most of which specialize in Hong Kong-style Cantonese cuisine and Chinese “Bar-B-Q”. Chinese BBQ generally refers to char sui — marinated and glazed strips of pork shoulder usually cooked in vertical ovens until slightly charred and glistening crimson. Sam Woo also has Peking ducks hanging on hooks, soy-cooked chicken, spare ribs, some massive Chinese sausages, and other meaty offerings. Most of their restaurants (at least the ones I’ve been to) are divided into a casual dining room and a small take-out area for customers who just need a half-duck or hunk of BBQ pork or what-have-you. Generally speaking the chain offers no decor or specific ambiance to speak of, just a bare-bones yet comfortable dining room with zero attempt at atmosphere other than the clatter of dishes and the multi-lingual chatter of customers and staff.

Sakura House: Sizzling Skewers of Kushiyaki

Absolutely fantastic grilled quail eggs wrapped in shaved pork.

Tucked away in the corner of a nondescript strip mall across and down the street from Costco on Washington Blvd is a wonderful Japanese restaurant. I’m not exactly sure how long Sakura House –  Sizzling Skewers of Kushiyaki has been there, but I first went there maybe eleven years ago. I believe my pal Mitch Pender took me there and I was a fan from the first bite. As you may have guessed from their wonderfully descriptive name, Sakura House specializes in grilled things on sticks.

Most of you will be familiar with yakitori, the famous chicken skewer of Japan, but you may not be familiar with the larger world of kushiyaki, which is way more than just grilled chicken bits on sticks. Of course chicken is offered, but perhaps in less recognizable forms; the best savory bits are chicken hearts, gizzards, livers, skin, and wings. But you’ll also find pork, beef, shrimp, squid, fish, and a variety of vegetables prepped for the grill. In addition they offer a wide range of other dishes from their back kitchen — salads, sauteed veggies, and some desserts.

At Sakura House they have a classic Japanese kushiyaki grill, which they feed with dense oak charcoal. I think they used to cook with specialized Japanese hardwood charcoal (which I’m familiar with and have used in the past) but according to the younger of the two grill-masters (the one staring at me in the picture below) Japanese charcoal is a thing of the past due to over-harvesting. You can get similar charcoal from China or Korea, but I think they now use a domestic product. In any event, this type of grill produces an intense heat, which cooks the skewers quickly and with a distinctive, lovely char.

It’s instructive to watch the guys grilling. They are focused and pretty adept at handling up to forty separate skewers at once, as well as whole ears of corn and rice cakes. I think they have a couple of different temperature zones, as I watched them transfer items from one side to another to finish. With most skewers, after grilling they’d dip or brush it with some tare sauce, a sauce of soy, mirin, sugar, ginger, maybe some garlic. It’s a simple sauce, and delicious.

It takes two guys to carefully tend this authentic Japanese grill.

Miso sauce, a little crunchy “crudite”.

When you sit down you’re given a little dish with two wells, one filled with a sweet-and-salty miso sauce. The other depression is for the soy sauce offered on the table. Another small dish is filled with a little crudite of cabbage, carrot, and cucumber which you can munch while you peruse the menu, which is vast with so many items it’s hard to make a choice. I recommend that you choose several grilled skewers, a salad of some kind, and a couple of warm dishes from the back kitchen. That’s what Regina and I did, and we had a wonderful, varied meal. We had enough to be full, enough to not want dessert, but not enough to make us feel obese when we left.

Simply, prettily prepared skewer of grilled squid with shiso leaf.

First up was a lovely skewer of grilled squid wrapped around shiso leaf. It was just-cooked-through, tender, and sweet. The aromatic shiso gave the mild squid a lovely herbaceous quality. I dipped it in the miso sauce and it came alive. It was a nice way to start, but frankly it paled in comparison to the robust and succulent parade of skewers that followed.

Next up was one of my favorites: enoki mushrooms wrapped in very thinly sliced pork belly. Six little bundles of the super-thin white fungi are stuck on a stick and grilled until lightly charred. This dish was absolutely stunning — fatty, delicious, springy on your tongue. I sprinkled over it a little shichimi togarashi, that finely ground Japanese chili powder mixed with ground yuzu zest. You’ll find a little shaker at every table. It’s a great way to give the skewers a little pow!

Skewer of gilled enoki mushrooms wrapped in thinly-sliced pork belly.

A little fuzzy, this pic. But the flavors of this dish were clear and direct.

A little sunomono was crisp and fresh, the thin slices of cucumber swimming in a mild ponzu. It’s a pleasant counterpoint to the more assertive flavors of the grill. If you’ve read any of my restaurant posts you’ll notice that in Asian restaurants Regina and I always get cucumbers in some form or another. It’s de rigueur when eating Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, or Japanese.

Grilled chicken hearts! Really delicious. I heartily recommend them! : )

This dude never loses his cool over a hot grill.

After the cucumbers we got in rapid succession some of Regina’s personal favorites — chicken hearts, livers, and gizzards. I love them too, but Regina gets downright fanatical about them. The chicken hearts were excellent — flavorful, a little chewy but not not remotely tough. The livers were by far some of the best I’ve ever had. Sometimes livers can be too granular, too minerally, almost too funky. These were not; they were superb — tender, moist, robust in flavor, just delicious and addicting. They were on par with chicken livers I’ve eaten at Yakitoria and better than the livers we ate at Furaibo a few months ago.

Now gizzards are tricky. Part of the chicken’s digestive system, the gizzard is a gastric mill, pre-stomach, that helps the birds break down tough grains. It’s a pretty tough muscle and if cooked badly can be a hard thing to force down. But Sakura House makes perfect grilled gizzard. They were both tender and crunchy at the same time. Absolutely delicious, although probably not for the novice. But if you’re feeling just a tiny bit daring, this skewer is a must!

Chicken liver was truly amazing!

Perfectly cooked chicken gizzards. Both tender and crunchy!

Surprisingly spicy and addictive sauteed shishito peppers.

We got a little break from the grill in the form of sauteed shishito peppers, which had a nice little char from the hot pan. These were perfectly cooked, simple and delicious. Mostly shishito are very mild, almost like a baby green bell pepper, but it seemed like every third or fourth pepper in this batch had the fire of a jalapeno! I needed my ice cold Sapporo to help quell the heat.

That awesome quail egg!

You know these guys reek of grilled meat every day of their lives!

Afterwards came that excellent quail egg, wrapped like the enoki in thinly sliced fatty pork. The pork was crispy and delicious, and the flavor soaked into the mild and fluffy boiled egg. It was just dynamite, especially with a dash of togarashi and a tiny dip of soy. Possibly my favorite dish of the night. I could have eaten a dozen more!

Next was the a beef skewer, which was frankly overcooked and bland. Too chewy, and a disappointment. But the chicken wing that followed was great. Before skewering the wings, the chefs cut into the skin and splay it out a little so that the wings cook evenly on the grill; even so, the menu says they take 20 minutes to cook. Well, the time on the grill pays off. The garlic pepper wings were delicious and perfectly cooked — moist on the inside, crisp and fatty on the outside. Very good, although I think I liked them a bit more than Regina.

Grilled beef skewer was a little tough and slightly bland.

Garlic pepper chicken wings. Very yummy, but don’t forget they take 20 minutes!

Our crispy char-grilled rice cake was also quite good, well-cooked and toasty. Only the filling of seasoned seaweed (perhaps hijiki) was kinda blah. They have other offerings, salmon roe being the filling I’d try on another visit.

Next was fried tofu with ground chicken, which was a bit like Chinese classic ma po tofu but less saucy and lacking the zesty kick of Sichuan peppercorn. It would have been perfect with a bowl of steamed rice, but we hadn’t ordered any and the rice cake was too flavorful in its own right to be a good foil. Also, the sauce was a trifle too sweet for my palate. It wasn’t great, but I ate the whole thing anyway.

Grilled rice cake stuffed with seasoned seaweed.

Fried tofu with minced chicken. Tasty, a bit too sweet.

Excellent eggplant with a simple miso sauce.

The eggplant with miso sauce came out next, and it was a winner. The eggplant was perfectly cooked. Tender but not mushy, well-flavored and not at all oily. It had a slight smoky undercurrent, and Regina turned to me and said, “You can taste the wok hay!” And then we burst out laughing. Because that is what we do.

The final dish was the spicy chicken wings. They weren’t very spicy, but the sauce was delightful and the char was really nice, adding texture and real flavor. Very good and tasty, but by that time I was pretty much done. We were full. Happy and full.

“Spicy” chicken wings weren’t, but they did taste good!

Service at Sakura House was pleasant and mostly attentive. We were comfortable. The restaurant has a clean, no-frills dining room with a few modest and pleasant touches. I particularly like the wooden bird toothpick dispenser, which dips its beak into the toothpick box and extracts a single pick just for you. A silly thing to take to, I know, but I can be a silly man.

Regina and I agreed that our dinner was fantastic. We will make a return trip for sure.

I just love this toothpick dispenser!

It’s 70 degrees and Regina is shivering at the door of Sakura House. Preposterous.

A couple of notes. Parking can be difficult and street parking might be the best option, so give yourself a little extra time. Also, I very much recommend dining early; as the evening progresses the well-meaning and friendly waitstaff can get easily overwhelmed and the relatively small grill can get crowded. If you dine early, say 6:30 PM, you’ll get more attentive service and the cooks can take more care with your food. You should make a reservation for sure.

For just a couple of people I prefer the counter, where you can watch the guys grilling. For larger parties a table in the dining area is a better arrangement.

 

 

Sakura House

13362 W Washington Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90066
Neighborhood: Culver City

(310) 306-7010

Santouka Ramen: Best Damn Food-Court Noodles Ever!

If you Yelp it you’ll notice many positively glowing reviews of Santouka Ramen. I’ve read these somewhat perplexed, as my sole experience a few years ago fell short. I only remember it as being…unmemorable. I’m not sure why I didn’t respond to it with enthusiasm at the time (was the food the problem or was I not in the mood or did I order wrong or what?), but that one mediocre experience meant I steered clear of it for a good long while. It’s a shame since I’ve probably missed out on a great number of fantastic steaming bowls of noodles.

Please don’t pity me; I’ve been scouring the city for great noodle soups and I’ve had killer ramen (all different) all over the place. But Santouka is only a couple of miles from my house and it would be crying shame if I couldn’t get a great lunch so close to home. On a whim I went twice this week and I am ready to proclaim Santouka delicious and addictive! I’m back in the fold. It’s everything they say it is.

The plastic ramen display is quite nice, if not as flavorful as the real thing.

A simple menu, a simpler order window.

Santouka is tucked into a small food court adjacent to Mitsuwa, one of the better Japanese markets on the Westside. In addition to this ramen place, there’s a Japanese bookstore, a video store, some sort of general store selling cheap pans, Hello Kitty crap, and plastic robots, and two other restaurant stalls. It’s a busy little shopping nook most of the time and at lunch, especially on a chilly, rainy day like it was two days ago, pretty crowded. Santouka seems by far the best-regarded food establishment there; there has been a line there every time I’ve been to the supermarket or eaten in the food court.

They’ve got an simple system going — you stand in line for a few minutes with the other hungry noodle-maniacs. You choose from the display of completely un-ironic plastic recreations of menu items — hmm, salt broth, miso broth, shoyu broth, how about spicy miso? Do you go for the combo with rice bowl topped with braised pork or plumb salmon roe? It’s your turn, you order at the window, you’re handed a ticket, you move to the side. You hunker down with the others, clutching your ticket and glancing at it too often. Your stomach rumbles as numbers are called and other customers walk by bearing steaming bowls of fabulous ramen. Your number is called!

You get your bowl and the heady aromas sweep over you. Ah, ramen!

Salt broth ramen with extra pork. Sooooooo satisfying.

I order the salt ramen with extra pork for the first of my two visits. The perfectly al dente noodles are topped with wood-ear mushrooms, slabs of tender and fatty braised pork, slivers of wood-ear mushrooms, sweet bamboo shoots, a slice of kamaboko (fish cake), a fistful of green onions, and a tiny pickled red plum. I added a healthy dash of schimichi togarashi (Japanese chili powder) and enjoyed the hell out of it.

The noodles were tasty and cooked perfectly al dente.

The broth was absolutely delicious, a combination of pork and chicken (I think) with some dashi going on too. It was fairly salty but not overly so. The noodles were superb — firm, a little chewy, fresh-tasting, and flavorful in their own right. The pork was very well cooked and quite tender, if perhaps a little bland. The wood-ears and bamboo shoots were pleasant both in flavor and texture. The lovely little plum was a nice surprise — sweet, salty, and tart all together. A very nice bowl and not too large. I’d ordered the medium, which was plenty of food for me.

Spicy miso broth with extra pork and marinated boiled egg.

I went two days later for another bowl. I ordered the spicy miso with extra pork and a boiled egg. The broth was delicious for sure, but unlike the more refined salt broth, was a bit oily (authentically oily) and a bit heavy for a large bowl. The pork this trip, however, was even better than the first visit — meatier, more robust in flavor. The other garnishes were the same as before and equally as good. They marinate the boiled egg in soy and mirin for a day or two after cooking, resulting in lovely brownish hue and a tasty egg. The yolk was a little too set for my tastes, though. I like a fragile, gooey, soft-boiled egg atop my ramen!

All-in-all, two very good bowls of ramen at Santouka! I’ll certainly return, especially as colder weather encroaches in the coming weeks as Autumn deepens. This stuff will warm you.

73% of repeat Santouka customers have bald or shaved heads.

They only take cash. The beverage selection is bare-bones. Parking is sketchy. Go anyway.

Santouka Ramen

3760 S Centinela Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90066

(310) 391-1101www.santouka.co.jp