Category: Steamy Ramen Goodness

San Francisco claims to be a foodie’s town. How can that be when there are exactly FIVE ramen shops in the ENTIRE city and none of them are really that outstanding…
Although we did have one shop called Katana-Ya near UCSF that closed a few years back. Now THAT was great ramen!
To get great ramen now, you have to drive about 20 miles (50 minutes from my place) down the 101 to San Mateo where the ramen epicentre of the Bay Area is. San Mateo is home to Santa Ramen, a ramen shop off a non-descript street away from downtown San Mateo.

If it helps, it’s across the street from Nazereth Plaza…
Santa has a great selection of ramen dishes and broths. They have shoyu, miso and my favourite, tonkotsu! It’s hard to find places that do tonkotsu here, let alone do it right.
Tonkotsu is a pork and chicken based broth that involves boiling bones for many days and nights. Ramen is a regional dish and tonkotsu hails from Kyushu, land of the Tsubame, Kagoshima, Hakata, Beppu , Hamasaki Ayumi and Moritaka Chisato! Tonkotsu is also extremely rich, milky and absolutely delicious! Here’s a place in Tokyo that makes it VERY well (since visitors to Japan dun usually make it to Kyushu..).
Santa also is known for their stewed pork. Basically it’s thick pork slices that replace the cha-siu that you would normally get in your ramen. When you pick it up with your hashi, it literally falls apart. It’s that tender and that flavourful. And since this is their speciality, you need to get here early because they only make so much each evening.
Which brings up the issue of the queue. Santa is open for both lunch and dinner and they have incredibly long queues when they’re open. Even longer on the weekends.

Hours of Operation!
I was able to have stewed pork exactly once, on the same night that the Chinese New Year parade was happening in SF. So there were less people in the queue at Santa and I was able to partake. The next time I tried, I waited for 45 minutes until I was next on the list to be seated. Then they ran out of stewed pork. Then I left for In-and-Out.
This time, I ordered tonkotsu cha-siu ramen and slurped down! The broth was good, but a touch salty and the thick noodles were just a touch soggy. Not as snappy as I usually like. And if you want an egg, that’s extra.

Tonkotsu cha-siu ramen. Tamago (egg) is extra…

Despite these nits to pick, it doesn’t detract from the utter goodness that Santa is. The restaurant itself is warm and loud (means lots of people slurping!) and it’s still kick-ass ramen! I’ll do a follow-up next time I’m here and get the stewed pork again…
Santa Ramen
805 South B Street
San Mateo CA 94401
The neat thing about having a place like Santa is that other shops of similar quality will open up nearby. Like Himawari!

Or, there ARE reasons to poke outside the Yamanote (besides going to Hakone).

Today, I had a Y1450 bowl of ramen. More accurately, a bowl of chasiumen. It was a big bowl with a lot of cha siu in it.

I found my way to Harukiya, a famous old, old old (1949!) school ramen shop in Suginami-Ku. It was an adventure getting here, since all I had was the address and since this wasn’t a major part of Tokyo, my atlas was useless. I took the Chuo Rapid to JR Ogikubo station. Left the JR station and wandered around. Strange how everything on this side of the station looked new…and this is supposed to be an old place! On a hunch, I went back into the station and double checked the map for landmarks. Ah! There’s a koban on the side I should be on! Kobans have cops inside! And cops ALWAYS know where the food is their beat. Yeah, that’s it.

I walked in and spoke my best polite pidgin Nihongo. And you know what? He understood me!! Or since it was 14:00 and I probably looked hungry, he knew what I was looking for when I said “Sumisen, Harukiya, doko desu ka?”, probably with all the wrong inflections. He said it was a three minute walk. Although now I know where it is, it would take 2 minutes. Easy to get to. Here’s how to get here:

Take the JR Chuo Rapid (beeeg orange train!) to Ogikubo Station. Exit on North side.
Walk through bus/cab area to main street. You will see the Koban on your left. Turn right. Walk on sidewalk (it’s one of those covered sidewalks). You will pass a 7-11. Toward the end of the block, you will see a small ramen place, usually with a queue. It’s directly across the street from a Family Mart.

But more importantly, when you come here, get the corner seat by the door. That puts you right next to the big ass stockpots full of ramen goodness. The one in the foreground is where the noodles are cooked. The cook uses a strainer to pull the noodles out of the pot, bounces them around to drain them and plops them into the waiting bowl of broth that was just poured 20 seconds before.

The noodles were fresh made and the broth was delicious without too much of that MSG ickyness that lower quality places have. And since it was soooo big and pricey, guess what? That’s dinner!

Harukiya
1 Chome-4-6 Kamiogi,
Suginami City, Tokyo 167-0043

and this is the ramen from the yatai (stall) below! Mmmmmmm. Hakata Ramen!

It means “ramen stall” and Hakata is known for these yatai. They’re all over. But the most famous area of yatai is along the canal where they’re all ramen yatai!