Category: Ramen

So, I recently got word that Ujin Ramen, whose storefront I first noticed in March of last year had finally opened. Man, what's with Renaissance Towne Center? Remember Kuljem Chicken & Beer, that was first supposed to be JJ Chicken and then Honeyjam Chicken, before the final renaming? Well, I remember when Ujin was going to be named Ramen Hanyuzur?

Anyway, I thought I'd check things out during the soft opening. Our friend "Google" and the other four-lettered site said Ujin opens at 11am. So, having some time I headed on over and for some reason easily found parking at 1115. I then walked over to the shop.

Where I found a gentleman opening the door. I walked on over and was told that they weren't opening until 1130…..fine, it's the soft opening period, so I went for a short walk and returned at 1130.

The interior is quite modern "trendy – artsy"??? There's a huge statue of Mercury at one of the corners. There are a few tables indoors and some al fresco seating, along with the standard bar area. There's also a communal 12 seat table where I was seated by the very sweet young lady.

It also seems that they may make their own ramen noodles. I asked about that, but never got an answer.

The menu is brief, something I actually like; especially when it comes to stuff like ramen. You don't see any of the good ramen shops in Japan making all styles of ramen…it's only here where places like Kitakata Ramen Ban Nai will have to start making tonkotsu ramen.

The ramen did seem kinda modern with porcini and mushrooms featured in the soup for several versions. There are two mushroom type broth, the tsukemen, shoyu, and shio soup features chicken.

Well, I just wanted to get some ramen, so I went with the "Classic Tokyo" Shoyu Ramen ($17.95). When my bowl arrived, I quickly noticed the noodles which were quite straight. I've always thought of Tokyo style ramen to have curly noodles of am medium thickness. Also when does a classic version of shoyu ramen have truffle and porcini?

  You could make out the scent of truffle. If you took a look at the broth, you'd notice little flecks of black. The more flecks, the stronger the truffle flavor. The broth was very light and in my mind could have used a bit more richness. The savory flavor of shoyu was barely evident. More of a mushroom broth to me. 

Two of my pet peeves were instantly fulfilled when the menma and the tamago were delivered ice cold. The egg could also have used a bit more time marinating.

 The noodles were of the thinner variety and a bit overcooked for my preference. 

The meats were interesting.

  The chashu had been grilled before serving; which totally changed the texture and taste. I like a nice "buttery" chashu and the grilling had made it rather tough and stringy. The flavor was on the lighter side as well.

The chicken breast was an oddity. At first glance I thought this was gio lua. Perhaps the thought was that it would be something decadent, almost like a pate or foie gras, instead the texture was odd, dry, fairly chewy, the flavor quite bland. Really did not enjoy that. 

It was an interesting bowl. Consumed while under the watchful "eye(s) and wings" of Mercury.

One thing good about the location….it's fairly close, so I decided to try the shio ramen….sorry mushroom/vegan ramen is just not my thing. On this visit, even though I confirmed an 11am opening time before I left previously, I arrived at 1130 just in case. Well, even with this buffer Ujin was not open. The young guy who mans the cooking area came out and told me they weren't opening until noon. Ah yes, the "softest cushion" of a soft opening. Luckily, I needed to get a couple of things from CVS and managed to kill time that way.

When I returned at noon, there were already several parties seated, so I'm guessing they opened before noon? Well, anyway, I decided to order the 3 piece Chicken Karaage ($6), along with the Shio Ramen. There are three different proteins you can have with your Shio Ramen; the Chicken Breast Chashu…..based on my previous visit, no thanks, Sliced Beef, or Wagyu. I decided on the sliced beef version ($18.95).

I was a bit hesitant about ordering the Karaage; after all it said "3 pieces", so I kept thinking it would be 3 typical sized pieces of karaage, but I was mistaken as these were quite large.

 I must say; this was fairly good, at least in terms of how moist, tender, and for the basic marinade/seasoning. The coating could have been a bit more crisp or crunchy as it deteriorated quite fast. Much of that was probably due to the overly sweet and sticky glaze used.

Still, this was much better than I thought it would be and definitely has potential.

As for the ramen. Well, the "beef" in the ramen was beef teriyaki-bulgogi like.

 There were some definite improvements on this visit. The noodles were firmer, the menma and tamago were not iced cold.

The beef was really low quality, lots of "sugi" (chewy fat and connective tissue), quite tough, the teriyaki style; sweet-soy-ginger type marinade was kind of interesting and really clashed with the large amount of savory-salty-oceany katsuobushi provided. The beef was really like something you'd get at a low-level Hawaiian BBQ type place.

The thin broth was dominated by the katsuobushi. There was just too much going on here in my opinion.

    Overall, the service was unobtrusive, the young lady working the front was very sweet.

While I'm glad things are moving on from San Diego being "tonkotsu city", I'm not quite sure about the ramen here. I enjoy shoyu ramen to have the flavor of shoyu; if the chicken is used in the broth, perhaps there should be a reflection of that. To me, the perfect home for Ujin would probably be North Park, South Park, or Normal Heights…

Perhaps I'm just out of touch and this is the future of ramen in San Diego? And perhaps I'll return after the soft opening period. Perhaps….

Ujin
8935 Towne Centre Dr.
San Diego, CA 92122

Man, it was 41 degrees this morning in Bay Park! Yikes, my "San Diegan" bloodstream seemed frozen! Well, it was definitely ramen weather for me. My typical ramen choice to temper the cold climate would be one of the usual suspects. But, in the end, I wanted something different from the ubiquitous tonkotsu style ramen that seems to be everywhere. I hadn't been back to Kitakata Ramen Ban Nai since they first opened back in July of 2023 (I almost said "last year"…but it's now 2025!) so I thought it would be a good time to check them out again.

I arrived a bit after the 11am opening time and was surprised to note that only one table was occupied and the counter where I was seated was completely empty.

The two folks manning the dining area were very nice and I was handed a menu. I quickly noticed that there's a lunch special available.

Under the auspices of the lunch special, one could get a side of karaage for $2.80. So, I could get a small Kitikata Ramen for $13.95, the tamago was now $1.50….looking back, I noticed that it was $1.90 back in July of 2023. So, could there actually be something that is now more inexpensive?

I also noticed this sign….the place seems to enjoy having these little signs.

I had always found the noodles here a bit on the softer-mushy side, but now I could get it "katame" (firm), which seemed like a good option. I did find the broth to be on the saltier side of things, but decided to do only "one change at a time".

So, all of this for $18.25.

    The bowl was delivered nice and hot. The tamago was now provided on the side. The yolk was adequately soft, the marinade a bit weak….but of course…my pet peeve, these were ice cold….sigh.

The chashu had the "fat cap" I recalled; though was cut thicker than I remember. It was not as nicely marinated and was also a bit chewier then before.

    The broth seemed more full-bodies then on my previous visits and while still a bit on the saltier side, I found the added richness more enjoyable . It's still seems fairly straight forward in flavor, but I think that might be a good thing in this case.

The added firmness of the noodles really made a difference for me, as I found that the additional "pull" combined with the curliness which managed to really "pick up" the soup added to my enjoyment.

Well, at least to me, on this visit, it seemed like Kitakata had gotten better since I first visited.

Well, the ramen that is. As for the karaage.

Unevenly coated, not crisp or crunchy enough for my taste, on the blander side. The flesh was fairly juicy and tender though. Not a big fan of the sesame like dressing provided either.

Still, I thought the Kitakata Ramen was good, an nice contrast to all the tonkotsu in San Diego. Though, looking at yet another sign; I guess they are making tonkotsu here as well? Which I'm probably NOT going to try.

Unless one of you, my great "FOYs" tell me it's worth my attention?

Like I mentioned, the two young people working were quite nice….though I'm not sure about the customer base? One couple kept calling them "hey! hey!", a guy in another group kept using the "come here finger" gesture….when they got what was requested, no one said "thank you"? What's going on these days?

Kitakata Ramen Ban Nai
7951 Othello Ave.
San Diego, CA 92111
Current Hours:
Mon-Thurs  11am – 3pm, 5pm – 9pm
Friday           11am – 3pm, 5pm – 10pm
Saturday      11am – 10pm
Sunday         11am – 9pm

Hope everyone had a wonderful New Year!

Yep, well the cold weather (it's all relative) has settled in. If there's one thing I enjoy about winter here is that it is cool enough for me to head out and get ramen. Heck, even the Missus was wanting some ramen.

And of course She chose…..

Santouka:

Man, can you believe that Santouka has been open for over 16 years already? And even with the influx of all the ramen shops over the years, the Shio Toroniku from Santoua is the the Missus's favorite.

Which is now $16.95. It was $15.95 on our last visit in February of last year. Still, the Missus and I will split one bowl and also get a rice bowl. On this day, the Missus chose the Chashu Gohan ($6). Guess She was feeling in a "porky" kinda mood.

The ramen was as usual; that bowl keeps the broth hot for the entire meal.

  Santouka has been fairly consistent over the years. Of course that consistency is a two way street. Santouka has probably the worse tamago. And yes, it's always been terribly overcooked. But hey, if you want consistency, that egg was just as bad at Santouka's original location in Asahikawa!

The broth was rich and tongue coating, savory with just enough saltiness for us.

The pork cheek (toroniku) was a bit tougher this time around and didn't start melting away in the hot broth like we enjoy. Still, it was delightfully porky.

Speaking of porky, we both enjoyed the Chashu Gohan.

Nicely flavored, fairly tender pork, over hot rice. Since we're not big eaters, this was enough for both of us. 

Santouka Ramen
4240 Kearny Mesa Rd(In the Mitsuwa Marketplace)
San Diego, CA 92111

A few days later, I was craving some ramen, and decided to head on over to another favorite; HiroNori. After all, the last time I visited was almost exactly a year ago. To be perfectly honest, these days I prefer the ramen at HiroNori to Menya, which has been somewhat inconsistent and much too busy these days. And let's not even go into the crazy prices at Baikohken. I also had thoughts of heading to UTC….perhaps I need to do a ramen rumination of all ramen places in Westfield UTC? But that'll have to wait until after the holidays.

So, it was off to try and find parking in Hillcrest. Which I magically found a few blocks away on Robinson and Third.

HiroNori Craft Ramen:

My timing worked out pretty well. The clock struck 1130 just as I crossed Fifth Avenue and I sauntered in; the first customer of the day.

I ordered my usual here; the Shoyu Ramen, now priced at $16.45, it was $15.10 at this time last year. I also got some moyashi ($.50). 

    I prefer the savory, somewhat salty, barrel aged shoyu broth to the tonkotsu here. It has nice soy-savory complexity and the broth has a decent velvety tongue feel.

The tamago had been nicely marinated and the yolk was warm. An ice cold egg is a pet peeve of mine.

   The chashu was porky, with a nice shoyu flavor. It was so soft and buttery; the best I've had here to date! I decided to get the noodles katame; firm, and the woman working nodded in approval. The noodles were indeed firm, slippery, but also did a great job "picking up" the broth.

This might be the best bowl I've had here to date!

For me, this is a great option to the typical tonkotsu broth that is everywhere. Which leads me to something interesting I noticed during my meal. There were three parties of folks who came in during my meal. They all ordered "tonkatsu" ramen. The Japanese woman working didn't blink an eye….I guess this is the norm here in Hillcrest. "Tonkatsu" ramen…..

HiroNori Craft Ramen
3803 5th Ave
San Diego, CA 92103

So, two bowls, both of them winnah's. It's a nice start to "ramen season" for me!

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

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?

So, a couple of weeks after I first saw the storefront for Monsta, they opened. A couple of folks I know actually visited and told me they weren't impressed and it was ramen and curry for the "masses". Still, I was curious so I decided to see what the grand opening business was like. I made sure to visit right at opening time and on both visits the place was empty.

 The interior is bright, rather spartan, and almost "fast-foodish". And to keep up with the times, you can order via menu or order and pay via QR code. The young lady, who was quite friendly also told me that there were special promotions for "online ordering" which was also reflected on the bottom of the menu.

And there it was, Tonkotsu Ramen, regular price $12, was $10 if ordering online.

I was going to order that anyway. I also asked the wonderful Server if there was any appetizers that folks really liked and was told that customers seemed to like the Potato Shrimp ($6), so I ordered that as well.

I gotta say, the Potato Shrimp, while being on the small side was kinds cute looking. The crustacean was wrapped in a potato string and deep fried.

 The shrimp was served with a "Thousand Isle-ish" dressing. The shrimp was overcooked and dry; the potato strings while mildly crisp lacked seasoning. A fairly bland dish overall.

As for my ten dollar ramen…..

 Well, let's just say, this reminded me of the last time I had a bowl of ten buck ramen. That broth was thin, lacking in any nuance, super salty, as in I was chugging water for the rest of the afternoon. Another broth that is Tonkotsu in name only.

The tamago was nicely cooked and decently marinated….but sigh…..guess what? It was ice cold!

The noodles were unevenly cooked, some were overcooked and mushy side and others were hard and brittle.

   The chashu had been marinated and charred. The flavor was not bad, but it was on the tough side.

Insipid as this was, it was still better than what I'd had at O-To-San, which is not saying much. Perhaps this ramen might have had a place in the day when Tajima was the only show in town; but these days, I consider it "C" level ramen.

Ok, well, the shop has "curry" in its name so I thought what the heck and returned for a follow up. The same nice young lady was working, I did the QR ordering and got the Pork Cutlet Curry Rice ($13).

 This was an interesting dish. The tonkatsu was nicely breaded, quite crisp, the pork itself was moist, but mushy, and lacking in flavor. The texture was kind of strange and the taste was definitely in the "other white meat" category.

The rice was drier than I prefer and the curry which had ground meat in it was quite thin, my packaged S&B curry is richer and thicker. The seasoning wasn't too bad, and it had a hint of heat.

 I liked the service, and the prices are cheap for this day and age; but to me it seemed like the food was at a "fast-casual" level and not even in the realm of "Japanese diner" or "Japanese food court" (think Mitsuwa Market Food Court) cuisine. In other words; it's more of a "Yawn-sta" instead of a "Monsta".

Monsta Ramen Curry
4344 Convoy St.
San Diego, CA 92111
Current Hours:
Daily 1130am – 0950pm