Has San Diego hit the saturation point for ramen yet? Well, perhaps not as it seems that Baikohken Ramen created a bit of a buzz upon opening in the former Menya Ultra spot in Hillcrest. Part of it was because the restaurant, which hails from Asahikawa, (which BTW has the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded in Japan, think minus 40) was mentioned in the Michelin Guide to Hokkaido in 2017. What was interesting was that Ramen Adventures wasn't too impressed with the Asahikawa location, calling it yet another chain. And yet, when I think of my favorite ramen shops in San Diego, be it HiroNori, Nagi, Menya, and of course Santouka (I need to make another visit to Ban Nai) are "chains" with multiple locations. Speaking of Santouka, the chain had it's start in Asahikawa, in fact, if you've read our little blog long enough, you'd know we went to Asahikawa just to visit the original location of Santouka! So, when thinking in terms of Asahikawa style ramen, be it ever so humble, I'd be doing a comparison to Santouka.
I'm not a big fan of trying to find parking in the little strip mall where Baikohken is located. Which they share with a couple of fairly busy businesses like Oscar’s Mexican Seafood. And this was before Baikohken started up weekday lunch service, so I thought myself lucky to get parking in the lot right at 5 pm.
The shop is rather tiny, so I can imagine how difficult getting a table during peak hours might be. I'd never been to this location of Menya, so am not sure how that would compare.
During my two visits, it was the same two folks working the front of house; both the older Japanese woman and the always hustling young lady were wonderful. Attentive, efficient, friendly.
Since I had my sights on doing a comparison with Santouka, I figured it had to be a shio ramen to start. I just decided to suck it up and go with the Shio Chashu Ramen……which is $22.95! Yikes. And to add to matters, I also ordered the 3 piece Karaage $6.95. Man, nearly thirty bucks for ramen and karaage without tax and tip! Is this the world we live in now?
First to arrive was the Karaage.
The pieces of karaage were large, the batter slightly crunchy, the chicken was on the tougher chewier side. It was also fairly bland in terms of seasoning. Not my favorite version of this.
And then my ramen arrived.
The broth was interesting, a lot lighter than I would expect for Hokkaido style ramen. It did have a good amount of saltiness and based on what I'd read, there's supposed to be a savory-seafood based component to it, like how Santouka is in Japan. I was looking forward to that, but I really couldn't make that out. As a whole, the broth lacked complexity.
The chashu looks like it was made from butt or loin, it had been marinated and seasoned well, but it was quite tough and chewy.
The menma (bamboo shoots) were nicely marinated. The cut was quite thick, which might give some folks problems, but was super crunchy.
The tamago looked great and was marinated well. Though, well, you know my pet peeve, right? The eggs were ice cold.
The noodles were nice and springy, of the slightly thicker variety, much like what we'd had at Noodle Zero, though it was a bit under cooked and chewy for my taste.
Overall, a kind of mixed bag. Some of this could be attributed to having recently opened. But when you create a certain amount of hype, I would think that expectations would be rather high and I was just looking for a good bowl of ramen.
Well, based on this visit you know that I was going to wait a couple of weeks before visiting again, right? Anyway, I drove on up and this time, even though it was before five on a weeknight, I had to find street parking a couple of blocks away. Still, the place was just opening when I walked on over and I easily got a table.
The same two wonderful women were working the front of house.
This time, I wasn't going to be going for a $23 ramen. I decided to try the shoyu ramen.
Of course, I couldn't let things well enough alone, I wanted to see if the cold egg was the norm so I added that ($1.95) and also some Moyashi (bean sprouts – $1.95). Which brought my bowl to almost $19.
Man, check out that chashu. It looked different from the version I'd had on my previous visit. It was still the same overly lean cut, but was also super salty. In fact, I wasn't able to finish it!
The tamago was even better in flavor this time around, but was still ice cold.
And salty is indeed the key word here; as the broth was also a sodium bomb. I couldn't really get past the saltiness. The texture is still on the thin side for this version as well.
Wanna see how much bean sprouts you get for two bucks here? At least it soaked up some of the broth and helped to cut the saltiness.
The one bright spot were the perfectly textured, springy noodles, that did a great job picking up the broth. Now it would have been great if it wasn't so salty….and I like salty foods!
Well, I decided that two initial visits would do it for now. I'll wait a while to revisit, hopefully things will improve.
Baikohken Ramen
690 University Ave.
San Diego, CA 92103
Current Hours:
Wed – Mon 12pm – 230pm, 5pm – 930pm
Closed on Tuesdays
Also, is it just me, or does it seem like Hillcrest is ramen central now? Isn't there like 5 ramen shops within a mile? I know UTC has 3 and near Convoy things are more spread out. What do you think?
Opening the sandwich up, the first thing I noticed was how much shredded lettuce there was. So much iceberg that it could have sunk the Titanic. Also, I remember Grab & Go as having some of the messiest, sloppiest sandwiches and this definitely lived up to that rep. One of the reasons I enjoy this sandwich is that it’s toasted, the bread was yeasty-crackley-crusty goodness. Also appreciated that the Provolone was melted. The jalapenos added some heat though not a huge amount. The oil and vinegar dressing is perfect for this sandwich; mayo would be overkill in my opinion.
The bun is thin with a slight pleasing crispness to it. The filling was scalding porky heaven, with nice hints of black pepper, mild sweetness, and savory tones. This was delici-yoso!!!
So, how did this match up? Well, the wrapper was not as tender and more brittle than what we'd had at DTF. The "soup", the aspic based liquid was porky and flavorful. The filling was tender, though not quite as flavorful as DTF in our opinion. Though, it could be that having been to several locations of DTF around the world we've been indoctrinated?
It was a very large portion! Though you can see how thick the kitchen is slicing the tendon and pork ear now. Eating some of the pieces of tendon was like trying to bite into your flip-flops! The pig ear was crunchy and manageable. The smacked cucumbers were better than what I'd had here previously, with a decent amount of salt. The chili oil based sauce wasn't quite as spicy as I recalled and it had a hint of sweetness and more soy sauce, which wasn't a bad thing.
Soon enough my plate arrived. I loved the colors on my plate. The rice was fluffy and fragrant, the adana kebab, while not as full of various spices as the version during Sultan's heydays was surprisingly moist, tender, and very beefy.
Other than that, this was a nice meal. A nice reacquaintance to an old favorite, a place like I mentioned so many times inspired us to 
Well, so that gentleman I ran into while 
Along with some Veggie Eggrolls. All part and parcel of the lunch specials we ordered.
Well, my favorite sandwich here is the Chinese Sausage Sandwich ($9.99), I get it with a fried egg ($1.50), easy on the mayo, extra toasted. While it's on the "bready" side, getting the roll extra toasted enhances the crustiness and diminishes the potential for sogginess as Tadian, even when I ask for easy on the mayo will have too much of it. I enjoy the meaty lup cheong, which has a nice salty-porky-sweetness. The egg adds more savory tones and the avocado tempers things down. To me, the onions add a good pungency and is necessary, as is the mild sweet acidity of the tomato. Everything has a part to play here.
