Daikokuya

Word on the street is that Daikokuya is the best ramen joint in Los Angeles. And by “street,” I mean Yelp. I ended up at Little Tokyo’s Daikokuya with my colleagues one evening, and unsurprisingly, the restaurant had a wait. After about thirty minutes, we were seated in one of Daikokuya’s casual, no-frills booths and handed a menu.

Gyoza

We started with a plate of pan-fried gyoza, crisped to perfection and covered in fragrant green onions. The gyoza wrappers were thinner than average, yet the filling managed to stay juicy.

Tuna sashimi bowl

Next came a plain shredded cabbage salad, followed by a tuna sashimi bowl. The tuna sashimi, which sat atop a layer of shredded nori and rice, served as a tasty but simple palate cleanser for what was the real star of the show: the daikoku ramen.

Daikoku ramen

The daikoku ramen is the only ramen on the menu at daikokuya. Making the broth is purportedly a day-long process, beginning with boiling pork bones and culminating in a broth reduction and soy sauce infusion. Lovers of fatty broth will rejoice here, but it was a little too rich for my taste. Still, the quality is apparent, and the daikoku ramen includes a healthy serving of chewy noodles, pork belly, boiled egg, bamboo shoots, and bean sprouts.

So, is Daikokuya the best ramen in Los Angeles? It depends on how you like your ramen. Regardless, I left feeling happy and satisfied, and that’s what it’s really all about.

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