So last week the mercury was flirting with the 80's. I was thinking about which taco shops I needed to visit. This weekend it's cloudy and now it's starting to rain. Go figure……
The one silver lining….this gave me a chance to revisit a couple of ramen shops.
Ramen Yamadaya:
**** Ramen Yamadaya has closed
Since they are open all the way through from 1130 on weekends, I decided to check them out at 4pm, thinking they'd be fairly calm.
I surprised to see how busy they were….not a full house, but at least 3/4 full. They had the seat yourself thing in place, so I had a seat……they saw me, but still, I waited, and waited……and waited. Another group arrived after me and they had water served and orders taken……a couple sat on the table next to me….and they waited……while I had my order taken and another group who had come after them were being served…the woman decided to take matters into her own hands and just grabbed one of the servers……so they could finally get some water and get their orders taken. The place just seemed much more disorganized than I recalled, even with three working front of house. They seemed to spend a good deal of time huddled at the POS and doing things like organizing chopsticks while dirty tables sat…. They were really nice kids, but it seemed like they needed someone running the front of house.
When I did get my order taken – Kotteri, with Kakuni Pork, noodles extra firm, things went fairly quickly.
The Hakata style noodles were exactly as I like them. While the broth isn't quite what I'd call "kotteri" it was passable, if a bit too mild in the flavor department. Two things kind of killed this for me. While the broth was served at a decent temperature, the egg was ice cold….now if you serve it on the side, I'd be ok with that, but in my soup, no thanks. Ditto with the buta kakuni, which was adequately tender, if a bit on the bland side…..but ice cold.
Something has changed since I first visited this location in 2012. Things seem to be less consistent during our recent visits.
Ramen Yamadaya
4706 Clairemont Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92117
Santouka:
Yes again. Though the Missus is over "the Santouka effect" and is now, kinda, sorta, back on planet Earth, we're able to enjoy Santouka in context.
This was the status quo…..on this day, they were giving out the eggs……overcooked for us. The pork cheek was tender and porky, the noodles had a great chew. The broth, shio, which ironically is the least salty of all choices was scalding hot…the thick ceramic bowl kept the temperature "right" for the whole meal. The broth coated our tongues and bellies….and while it would not make us forget the best of what we had in Japan, it did the job.
Santouka Ramen
4240 Kearny Mesa Rd(In the Mitsuwa Marketplace)
San Diego, CA 92111