What You See is What You Eat.

Sorry; as someone asked me, “What the hell have you been eating all month?”  Well, I’ll tell you: not much.  Lots of work, lots of repeated business at places I’ve already reviewed, lots of forgetting to eat, lots of coffee dinners, and not a lot of time overall.  Here’s a short one: the holy ramen house of Daikokuya.

I was in Echo Park a few days ago with a friend and had one of those moments where I’m grasping for straws as to where to eat. As someone who nerds out, and is a total snot, about food, I feel like such a disappointment whenever I can’t think of somewhere to go. My problem was that I had been to the Echo Park area at least once every week or so for the last few weeks, so I was really tired of all the nearby joints. My friend asked me what I would eat if I could have anything right then, a question that was a lot like the “What would you do with your life if you could do anything right now?” discussion we just had. Unlike that conversation, I did come up with an answer: pho. On cold days, that’s all I want. Neither one of us felt like driving out to the Valley, so what is a good alternative? And that is the story of how we ended up at Daikokuya.

Daikokuya, possibly the best known ramen house in the city, at least among the hipsters who love all things Little Tokyo even as they work quickly towards gentrifying the area. Others looove Santouka, located in the Mitsuwa market on Centinela, and which I always, always forget about when I am craving ramen on my side of town. Anyway, Daikokuya.

Like almost all noodle soups, the make-or-break ingredient is the broth. Unlike the clear, light, but complex broth of pho, proper ramen broth is heavy, cloudy, pre-grits cornmeal-colored dark. Daikokuya prides itself on making its broth from pork joints and bones overnight, “from an undisclosed location.” Not sure why; I guess there is/was a time when broth poaching was all the rage. In any case, it has done well in guarding its giant vats of broth from jealous broth robbers. It’s constantly crowded, a function of its broth, its limited, dive-like space and its popularity post-Jonathan Gold. Everyone lines up, often out the door (which really is not hard, because the waiting area is tiny), but service is quick and people are in and out fast.

$8.50 gets you an enormous bowl. For the more experienced (read: not me), you can modify your bowl similar to the way you modify your In-N-Out burger: firmness of the noodles, richness of the broth, etc. From what I hear – but not yet tried – the gyozas also are excellent.

Back to the star of the show: the broth. The broth is warm, rich, meaty, and thick. This has the benefit of forcing you to not swallow too fast and actually taste – almost eat – what you’re drinking, a step I skip when slurping pho broth from my soup spoon. The liquid holds all the solids together; the noodles, egg (yum), and veggies sit peacefully like a good little archipelago that I would like to visit when I get my head out from all these pleading clips.

Some people quibble with the noodles that Daikokuya uses, and I think they’re right. They’re just too…eggy. Too thick, too much to chew on in the middle of already meaty broth, and I really think they make you unnecessarily fuller than you should be at the halfway point of your bowl. This isn’t to say that that this bowl of noodles is horrible; you could do so much worse, even in Little Tokyo. It’s great when you’re downtown and bored of all the variations-on-an-old-theme restaurants popping up, or you’re in Echo Park looking to bond with a friend over hot soup. It’s particularly great because it’s open so late – we were in there around 11pm, and they were gladly filling up the bowls for all the Oliver Twists asking for more.

I’ve got my eye on Santouku, Rameniac’s top LA-area ramen house for the last few years running. It probably earned a bunch of points just for keeping the hipsters at bay over at Daikokuya.

! Glad to be back !

Daikouya
327 E. 1st Street
Little Tokyo
Mo-Th 11am-midnight
Fri-Sa 11am-1am!
Su 12pm – “till the soup is gone!” I don’t know what this means, but take your chances.

New Location in Monterey Park (the website has a cute Eater LA-type “Monterey Park Watch”)
111 N. Atlantic
Monterey Park
Soft opening stage; call (626) 570-1930 for hours