There once was this ramen-ya in San Jose called Do-Henkotsu. What made this place unique among a dozen or so ramen-ya in the area was its regional color and the owner’s (whose name I never got to know) pride in it.

The ramen itself was pretty good, maybe not the best, but different from most of the Kanto-style ones. The shop also displayed quite a few posters and offered magazines about Tokushima, a town in Shikoku where the owner is from (it’s where I learned about “Awa Odori”, a local festival whose dance I recognized immediately while watching “Kaze no Haruka”).

But the best part about the restaurant was the “itame”, stir-fry rice dishes. I still remember first trying the “nira itame” (stir-fry with leek, vegetables and pork over rice), then “kimchi buta itame” (stir-fry with kimchi, vegetables and pork over rice), and then finding out that “kimchi don” was the same as “kimchi buta itame”, but cheaper! :p Man, I really really loved “kimchi don”.

Then it closed, in early 2007 and is replaced by another (more generic) ramen-ya, Kahoo in March 2007. This place serves pretty standard ramen with their own “spicy” versions.

I’ve seen the chef of the new restaurant before. He used to help out the Do-Henkotsu’s owner. I think I first saw him late last fall. I was thinking he must be helping out and was secretly hoping that this new guy might be a new “franchiser”…

But alas, he was just learning the ropes, and the transition plan must have been going on for quite some time. I am just sad that I didn’t have a chance to say thank you and goodbye.

So, thanks for all the kimchi-don and other itame I enjoyed. If you ever plan to get out of a retirement, again, let me know.

I’ve heard about this place at Chowhound, but did not have a chance to visit. It’s in Fremont, so a bit far from the home, but not too bad from the office.

Their menu was similar to Santa, where you have the menu on the wall with three base soup (sio, shouyu, and tonkotsu) with various combinations of toppings.

Their store layout was similar to Ryowa , where you have several rows of bars (sits about 30?) and several tables (4 or 5, maybe). They also have a small shelf with comics.

No kimchi or other free side dish though.

I had a shouyu kakuni (“simmered pork”). Overall, the taste was similar to that of Maru Ichi (the soup and the pork).

Although the noodles were slightly undercooked to give the chewy-ness, I thought the noodle was a bit weak (too old/dry?).

Another thing, when I was slurping the noodles, I smelled of ammonia (?) from the noodles a few times, which bothered me. I think this was the first time that I’ve noticed this in a ramen-ya.

Anyway, the place seemed busy when I got there (around 1 p.m.), but by the time I left (1:30 p.m.), it became pretty empty. Given the location, I think most of the customers were ethnic Chinese.

A bit more exploring to do.

While doing a web search, I came across this name recently. It seems the shop is really new. It probably opened this year, or December last year at the earliest.

I’ve heard that it is run by the same guy who runs Sushi Maru, so I guess this means that more people see the opportunity and maybe this will make restaurant ramen more popular.

MaruIchi Noodle House is in downtown Mountain View, where Ryowa Ramen is. It’s a bit away from Ryowa and since it is new, it doesn’t seem to draw as many people yet.

The location used to be a Vietnamese restaurant and it seems they’ve inherited most of the stuff. Although it has several TVs showing some taped Japanese programs, the decor is definitely not traditional. There is no “bar” as one might expect and it is all tables.

One nice thing is that most of those seatings are diner-like booth seats. There are about 13 or so booth seatings with some regular tables, so the seating wouldn’t be a much problem.

Its main menu is, of course, ramen that comes in three flavors (tonkotsu/pork, shouyu/soy sauce, and miso/soy bean paste). You can add several toppings for a buck or two. The soup is, I think, on par with Ryowa. But I liked Maru Ichi’s selection of toppings.

They also have Maruichi Ramen, which is a tonkotsu ramen with stewed pork (as well as regular chashu) and spice cod roes. I think the stewed pork if very good and those who like the same thing from Santa should enjoy it as well. (But if you like some other soup flavor, for the same price you can add stewed pork and spicy cod roes to the basic ramen.) Anyway, this probably means that I don’t have to drive up to Santa as much.

Other than ramen and some set menus, they have udon and stuff, but I haven’t tried them. All their menu price includes sales tax, which I though was a good thing.

Each table has a container of kimchee a la Ryowa. It is less spicy Japanese stuff, not the real Korean ones, but it’s good not to be charged extra. There is also a bottle of roasted shavings of garlic that you can put in the soup. I thought this was an excellent idea.

The food is good and the ramen is good. I don’t mind the non-traditional decor and stuff. My problem is that the shop is not visible from outside! The shop name is on top of the entrance, but there is small roof (?) that blocks it unless you are on the other side of the street.

I think they can do a lot better business by putting up the rod and the shop “curtain” thingy (I don’t know what that’s called) outside the entrance. Maybe put “RAMEN” on the window or something.

This seems to be the latest ramen-ya in the South Bay. From their website, Ramen Halu (ラメン晴) opened in early 2003. I came across the name while “researching” for other entries and we decided to try it out.

It is not too far from Tokushima Ramen Dohenkotsu. It seems the place draws quite a few crowd and I think it will draw a nice contrast to slightly different styles of ramen.

The shop has a small counter (seating maybe 5 or so) and about 9 tables. There is a signing sheet inside the shop. I guess the owner likes surfing because there are a couple of boards up on the wall.

They have three flavors: Halu (pork), Tokyo (soy sauce), and Shio (salt). You can add more toppings (e.g., chashu). Actually chashu looked leanest.

The interesting thing about the place was the noodle. Halu ramen comes with thicker ones and the others with thinner ones. The thicker ones are thicker than those found in other places. I really liked the thicker ones. I didn’t care that much for the thinner ones.

For dinner they seem to have some more appetizers, but mostly, it’s only for ramen like most other places.

This is also one I found through WorldRamen.net. It has a pretty good review, and I have to agree.

Ramen Santa (ラーメンサン太) is a couple of blocks off of the main street in San Mateo. The place seems to have gained quite a bit of followers since there is always a waiting list posted outside.

The shop is, maybe, a bit bigger than Tokushima Ramen, and has about 10 seats around the bar, and about 6 tables. The decor is pretty blend. No TV, no manga/magazines.

The menu is on the wall only and it seems there isn’t anything else beside ramen. But the soup comes in three flavor: shouyu (しょうゆ, soy sauce), tonkotsu (豚骨, pork), and miso (味噌, soy bean paste). I prefer shouyu, but others aren’t bad, either. Their soup has the strongest flavor among the places I’ve been to, and you can actually see the thickness of the oil layer on top of the soup.

They have a matrix of topping selection for each flavor. Some interesting ones were curry and ginger. They have a special “stewed pork” chaashuu (I couldn’t get the kanji, but it said タ－ロ－), which seems to be quite popular. Their normal chaashuu is thinly sliced pork belly that you can see in most ramen-ya. This one is a thick (almost cube-like) chunk of pork belly, which adds more flavor.

Also, the portion is quite big. I noticed that there is an “extra noodle” (大盤, “big bowl”) option ($1.00), but I doubt anyone would need it.

The only thing that I don’t like about the place is the service. It’s quite slow. Not that it’s bad, but it’s slow. Maybe the kitchen is overwhelmed, but don’t expect it to quick in-and-out.

Anyway, I noticed that there was a “poem” behind the counter. I am not sure if I remembered it exactly (but the meaning is similar).

　　            さがしているのは
              ほんものの
     らーめんだっ太

I asked the lady who worked there if that’s what the name of the shop really meant. She told me that the name was there before the current owner got it. She said maybe the new owner wanted to put some meaning into it. Who knows.

As I was looking for different ramen places around the area, I found this shop last December. It might have been around longer, but I didn’t know about it.

Tokushima Ramen Dohenkotsu (徳島ラーメンどへんこつ) is in the same complex as the Mitsuwa market, so the traffic seems to be relatively high. It is “hidden” onto one corner, but it’s not that difficult to find the place (right next to the PC Bang).

Tokushima is a prefecture in Shikoku (四国). It seems the owner is from the prefecture and the shop claims Tokushima ramen is different from others, and you can kind of see that. I can’t tell the difference about the noodle itself, but the chaashuu is definitely different. It looks close to marinated thick slices of bacon.

I think the soup is a pork flavor (豚骨, tonkotsu, “pork bone”) and they have only one flavor. They have two bowl sizes: medium and large. I think their large is about the same size as or a bit smaller to that of Ryowa.

As I mentioned in another post, it’s interesting to note that in this shop, ramen is also called chuuka-soba (中華そば, “chinese noodle”) and you can see the term all over the shop walls.

Beside ramen, they also have some stir-fries and stuff (a la Chinese). I haven’t tried them though.

I like their ramen. Their flavor is much stronger and their soup has more body than Ryowa’s, I think. However, they are pricier.

They have bars (for about 10?) and several tables (5 or 6). It’s a bit small. They have a satellite TV showing Japanese broadcasts (whatever is on, usually) and a small collection of manga (with a tongue-in-cheek warning to return them to the shelf when done).

This is actually the first ramen-ya that I’ve been to. I am not sure when they opened the shop, but their location is probably the best in the area (off of Castro Street) where there are always good number of people, especially Far-East Asians. During the lunch hours, there can be 10, 20 people waiting inside and outside. Their business has been so good that they opened another shop in Berkeley recently (and their commercials are on KTSF).

The seating area is mostly bars (for about 25 people) and several small tables (two, I think). They have a TV showing some recorded Japanese TV shows (mostly talk shows such as Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ). They also have a couple of shelves with manga, but I don’t think they have been updating the inventory for a while.

They say they are “Kobe” ramen. I know where it is, but I don’t have a slightest idea what that means. The soup has three flavors: ryowa (not sure what it is), shouyu (soy sauce based), and miso (soy bean paste based). The chashu (pork slices) is a pretty common type of thin slices of pork belly. For lunch, they have combos (ramen, gyoza and a bowl of rice).

Besides those three and gyoza, they didn’t use to have much variation. But they’ve been adding others. They have butabara (fattier pork) ramen (only served in the evening if I remember correctly), butter corn ramen (which seems to be popular among Chinese customers) and chicken karaage (fried chicken without the batter).

However, there is something special about RaaMen (ラ―メン/”ramen”). I am not certain about the origin of the name, but the term came about in the early 20th century in Japan.

Certain times, it is also called ChuuKaSoBa (中華そば/”Chinese Noodles”). Soba is a Japanese word for “noodles” and I think when that kind of noodles were introduced in Japan, it was named such to differentiate from Japanese noodles that existed.

Another indication that it is related to China (or that people think it’s related to China) is that most Ramen shops (in and outside Japan) have a decor of Chinese restaurants (the designs on the bowls, the soup spoons, the woks, etc.). However, this could have been more of a marketing device.

Whatever the origin of the noodle was, that is not all that makes a Ramen. Ramen is a Japanese food with its unique characteristics of the soup, the toppings, and the culture.

As for me, while growing up in Korea, I was only exposed to the instant versions (takes 5 minutes or so to cook in a boiling water). And indeed, I thought that and the cup versions were the only variations of Ramen till I saw “Tampopo” in 1995.

I realized that the Ramen that I knew were only a “frozen pizza” version (not that I don’t like instant ramen)! I stumbled onto Ryowa Ramen in Mountain View, CA one day in 1996 and got a taste of what it could be. And when I had a chance to visit Japan in 2001, I tried several shops in Kyoto and Tokyo.

Anyway, there are a couple of pretty good Ramen-ya around where I live (San Jose, CA). And with the help of World Ramen Net‘s DB, I was able to find a couple more.

I don’t know why more people aren’t getting into Ramen (non-instant) as much as Pho. Maybe it’s the cost… Maybe it’s the misconception that most people have about Ramen being instant.

Hmm… I need to get my GukSu fix…