Ramen rampage: Hakata Ramen Shinsengumi

This is a bit of back-post, which I will have a few more later, because of the places I went to during the first week after my graduation. You see, near the end of the last quarter of my undergraduate quest, I went (and still is) on a ramen rampage. For some inexplicable reason, I developed a really bad ramen craving. Going to my usual ramen shop only fueled my quest to seek out more. Knowing that there is a significant Japanese population in Gardena/Torrence area, and that I will be passing by there on my way to my boyfriend's family in LA, I yelped the best ramen places in the region. Hakata ramen Shinsengumi came on top with 41/2 stars and over 500 reviews. Logically, I had to go.

Our first visit was right after my graduation, driving from San Diego to LA, we arrived in Gardena around 7pm on a Saturday. There were already many people outside of the establishment, and despite being really starved college students,we waited around 30minutes to be finally seated. The wait was well worth it!

It's a medium-small sized shop, crowded (understandably), and charmingly noisy. The menu was
fairly extensive for a ramen shop, and even though the prices were higher than what we were used to, we ordered perhaps more food than I should have eaten. After all, this was one of the few chances we get to be there, and I did just finish four years of pain.

We don't usually get appetizers, but since we were in the mood to celebrate, a half gyoza plate was in order. The first thing I noticed was that they were super small. Tiny, in fact. But since normally one order of gyoza was 6 pieces, it make sense for them to be smaller and still have 6 pieces for a half order.

(there's only 4 pieces in this picture because we were too hungry and forgot to take the picture before we started eating)

Then comes the ramen:

My boyfriend, the Hungry Engineering Student (HES) ordered the hakata ramen with extra pork, takana, eggs, and spicy miso (on the side).

I got me some hakata ramen as well, with sprouts, bamboo, eggs, and corn. Yum! Oh, the flavors... it was like an explosion in my mouth.

The soup base, being my favorite kind - tokotsu, was creamy and salty. The noodles were different from most ramen shops. It's thinner and straight. You can get your noodles cooked to different doneness. We ordered normal noodles, which was a little on the soft side for my liking. The hakata ramen only comes with pork, green onions, and ginger, but you can add toppings (like we did) at extra cost, which is worth it! The spicy miso was especially good in the soup. Don't get me wrong, the soup base was already divine, but with the spicy miso? Orgasmic. (I love me some spice.) And being the hungry student he is, my boyfriend ordered extra ramen for 99 cents. haha

Then, already beyond full from the noodles, we noticed the yogurt mousse on the desert menu for $4. Despite my better judgement, we ordered one.

O.M.G. I died.

I gotta say, it was so much food, but I LOVE Asian yogurt! LOVE! I grew up drinking fresh, lightly sweetened plain tart yogurt from those small glass bottles. It's the only way to have yogurt, imo. I don't know how they make it so good, but I have yet to find comparable yogurt in the States. This is a luxury. Totally worth the $4.

Our second visit to the store was a short week later, on our way back down to San Diego. My craving for ramen seems to be a bottomless pit. This time we went there for lunch on a Monday. Needless to say, we still had to wait. Lunch menu gave less options of toppings but more combos were available.

Taking budget into more consideration, I ordered ramen and half gyoza combo with spicy miso and takana.

HES ordered ramen and pork over rice combo with extra pork, eggs, and extra noodles.

This time, we ordered hard noodles (because the best noodles are al dente) and thick soup base. It came out perfect! Although at first I was unsure about the texture of the noodles, but now, I can't stop thinking about it. It's better than any other ramen noodles I've had so far. Nommmm.

Now I know some people reviewed that this place was bad and nothing like the shops in Japan, and those who like Shinsengumi has never had "real" ramen. It's true, I've never been to Japan and feasted on bowl after bowls of delicious salty goodness (but I will!), but you know what, this is California. I know perfectly well the shortage of authentic ethnic cuisine, having spent over half of my life in China, after all. My mother and I spent a good deal of effort in America searching for restaurants that brought even a glimmer of the flavors we knew in China, and we're still searching. I was disappointed and even upset that no one in America was capable of producing the lovely tastes I knew. After my last trip to China, though, I realized that the taste lies as much, if not more, in the ingredients used as it lies in the recipes itself. The same simple dish, cooked with bak choy in China tasted 100 times better than the same recipe cooked with bak choy in America. Such is the sad truth. Secondly, since when can you claim authenticity in ramen? Ramen itself is derived from noodle soups in China, originally. The concoction has gone such evolution that it looks and tastes like nothing of it's predecessor. Food, like many things in culture, is constantly changing and adapting, so it's really moot point arguing that ramen in America is not the same as the ones in Japan. Suck it up people.

Enough with the rant. Just go try it.