Santouka - Los Angeles (Mar Vista)

While I like ramen, I'm not as much of a ramen freak as cousin Q. Last month when the middle '87 came back from studying abroad in Singapore, cousin Q decided to take his sister out for ramen for her first meal back in the U.S. Lil' sis and I tagged along. Santouka is located inside the Mitsuwa Marketplace located at the corner of Centinela Avenue and Venice Boulevard. Originally, he wanted to check out Gardena Ramen but none of us were in a mood to battle traffic. So he suggested Santouka in Los Angeles. Since I'm a big fan of Santouka in Costa Mesa, and since this is technically another location, I was all up for having great ramen and a new blog post at the same time. Since I got shio (salt) ramen last time, I opted for a regular-sized bowl of karamiso (spicy miso) ramen for $6.99. I'm not sure if this is a chain-wide thing, or just this location, but there's now sizes small and large for slightly less or more in price. The middle '87 got Shio (Japanese Salt) Ramen for $6.49. Lil' sis got shoyu (soy sauce) ramen for $6.49. And cousin Q got the D set of shio ramen with Buta No Kakuni (Japanese Braised Pork) and rice for $8.99. I'm not sure if it was just that day, but we were all disappointed with our ramens. Like really disappointed. And yes, I sampled everyone's bowl, including my beloved shio flavor. Not that this was a bad bowl of ramen, although it was rather oily that day. The broth lacked the depth of flavor that I had experienced at Santouka in Costa Mesa. While I slurped every last bit of my noodles and broth before, I didn't finish my noodles here. :( On the flip side, this location seems to be much more generous with their serving of noodles. This is why even though some places may have several locations, I blog about and recommend them separately. Other ramen restaurants: Aji Man Japanese Restaurant - San Gabriel Daikokuya Original Noodle & Rice-Bowl - Los Angeles (Little Tokyo) Daikokuya Original Noodle & Rice-Bowl - Monterey Park Foo Foo Tei Noodle House - Monterey Park Santouka - Costa Mesa Shin-Sen-Gumi Hakata Ramen - Gardena Shin-sen-gumi Hakata Ramen - Rosemead Who else ate here? Jeannie of The World is My Oyster returned twice in four days. Santouka 3760 Centinela Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90189 310-391-1101 Open 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. ***** 1 year ago today, while I thought Golden Deli Vietnamese Restaurant - San Gabriel was good, I didn't get why people would wait in line out the door for it.