Santa Ramen

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!