The Quest for Ramen: Los Angeles Edition

    Clockwise: ramen from Santouka, Chabuya, Jinya, and Ton-chan.

My favorite comfort food is Japanese Ramen. And yes, the ones they serve in these restaurants are definitely a step above your packaged instant noodles.

LA has a wide selection of great Asian restaurants, and coming from eating Ippudo, Hide-Chan, and Totto Ramen in NYC, I'm not exactly a stranger to great ramen. How has things fared in the City of Angels so far?

Very good. Definitely can compete with the best of the east coast, but with more selection and usually cheaper prices. Santouka and Ton-chan ramen all offer a combo meal with a bowl of rice topped with either salmon roe, pork belly, or fermented beans. Ton-chan has even more options, letting you opt to get curry rice as well as other dishes with your bowl of noodles. But enough with the sides, how is the actual ramen?

All of these ramen restaurants serve their noodles in a rich pork broth, with pork belly, some vegetables, and usually an egg. Ramen Jinya has a limited 20 servings a day premium rich pork broth, and it's delicious. Too bad their noodles are the worst of the 4. Chabuya is the healthiest of the 4, as they don't use MSG. But their portions are smaller and their broth just seems slightly blander than the rest. Ton-chan adds black garlic oil to their tasty broth, but their noodles are only slightly above Jinya's quality.

The best ramen I've had in LA then is Santouka. Everything in the bowl is slurptastic, and definitely worth a trip to the west side. Ton-chan Ramen is a close 2nd, as they have the best value (you choose 2 extra ingredients to add to the ramen for free, and you get a nice pudding dessert with the meal). Either way, I'll be on the look out for more Ramen in LA!

Note: I've tried Daikokuya before this post, and I would rank it on the same level as Jinya.