Friday, November 21, 2008

Settling For Less Than The Best Ramen @ Mr. Ramen (Little Tokyo)


I wish I can tell you why I decided to come here instead of Daikokuya, considering it was only a few steps away from this place. Maybe it was my sense of adventure of trying something New that pressured me into coming inside of this place.

It's really a tough call for me about this place because it does need repeat visits to make it an impact, but for me this might be it. I did really like the service at this place as it was very fast.

It's one of those no fuss kind of place where you get everything to your liking for your ramen. You can ordered different type of soup base to go along with your ramen. For something extra, you can add in a gyoza or any other side dish to your order.


Gyoza (pan fried pork dumplings)

I ordered a miso soup ramen which was pretty good in terms of its noodle and soup. The portion because I ordered with a gyoza only comes in half of a bowl. I guess I can ordered the regular size, but it would charged me the full price instead of the special on their menu.


Miso Ramen

The other pluses was that it has a shelf with comic books or magazines for you while you wait for your ramen. Nice little touch to keep the customer occupy while they wait for their order.The other big plus is that they are opened all day and don't have a shutdown time like Daikokuya and some other restaurants.

The bad part about coming to Mr. Ramen is that it's a very small place that is very tight in space. The restaurant is a vertical length of a place with tables going along the side of the wall. Not an ideal for big groups bigger than 6 people. With Daikokuya so close, it probably wouldn't matter anyways. To me, their miso ramen was trying hard to be like Shin Shen Gumi's miso ramen. It's soft and a bit saltier on the soup broth.

That was a bummer part because SSG was better in all three areas compare to Mr. Ramen: noodle, soup, and toppings. If it was just a tad better, I would have recommended this place. Now I'm just too scared to try their pork based ramen soup because you know how I valued Daikokuya's broth. So this was going to be a downer.

Urban legend has it in that these place served veggie broth (without any meat additives on their soup). One of my friend, the Vegetarian Diva visited the place and found no such thing exist here. So whoever had put these place up as a vegetarian friendly place, should take that claim off the vegetarian friendly list.

The quality of the food and service was good, but not to a point where I can really give them a higher grade as several other ramen joints obviously served better ramen than the place that calls itself "Mr. Ramen". If they owned the ramen competition like they owned the name, I would gladly ranked them higher, but alas it is in middle of the pack in my eyes and taste buds.

Mr. Ramen
341 E. 1st Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 626-4252

Grade:
Mr Ramen on Urbanspoon

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

so this place got a C huh?

Right Way to Eat said...

Hi Susy,

Yeah, this gets my so-so grade. There are better places to go for the same ramen they are serving.

Anonymous said...

nope i wont be going to the party the day after at royal t... i might try to pop in on thursday. =)