Ramen wasn’t on my radar until a couple of years ago. I found out that the number one Yelp review was a Ramen shop, not far from my home. Number one? I’m game, so I looked it up and found out that it is located in the Mitsuwa Marketplace in Costa Mesa, CA.
Mitsuwa Marketplace is a very busy Japanese grocery store. Parking is tough. Once you have found a place to park the car, you enter the grocery store and on the right hand side there are many kiosks. Some of the tiny stores sell beautiful Japanese desserts. There is a Lupica Tea store, a Japanese video store, travel agency, a houseware store and quite a large bookstore. Walking past the kiosks you enter the food court. There must be at least 12 different eateries with seating in the middle of the food court. I see a line in front of one of the establishments, yep, that’s the one. Santouka Ramen.
What’s great about these Japanese eateries is that they either have photographs of the food or molded, 
plastic versions of the dish. As I stand in line, I recall from the yelp reviews that the pork ramen is their signature dish. From the photos in the window, I see I can order spicy or regular ramen. I love spice, but being that it’s my first go around, I decide the regular pork ramen is what I should order. Be aware that this place deals only in cash, so bring the green. You also have a choice of either a small, regular or large bowl. Once you order, find a table and wait until your number is called. You have to pay attention as many of the other food places are calling out numbers at the same time. As I sit and wait for my number to be called, I noticed that there are mostly Japanese people eating there. That is a good sign, that the food is definitely authentic.
Finally, my number is called and I carry a steaming bowl of noodles back to my table. The bowl contains lots of medium sized noodles, green onions, bamboo shoots, a pickled plum (looks like a red marble), Jelly Ear (which I assume is a type of dried mushroom) and Cha-Shu pork swimming in a full bodied broth of goodness.
From experience, I recommend using chopsticks for eating this. Once your chopsticks finish grasping the last noodle, pick your bowl up and bring it up to your lips and sip away. The broth is probably my favorite part of this dish. Apparently it takes 20 hours of pork bones simmering before any vegetables or dried fish and kelp is added to make this broth. The only way I can describe the broth is: it is like sitting by a warm fire on a cold night; cozy, warm and satisfying.
On Santouka Ramen’s website is the history of how this ramen shop came to be.
One day, after watching Tampopo—a hit Japanese comedy, that featured, about a quirky ramen establishment—SANTOUKA’s founder, Hitoshi Hatanaka and his family stopped at a ramen shop for a quick meal. Unsatisfied with the taste of the shop’s ramen, Hatanaka declared that the next time he would be the one making ramen for his family. This simple proclamation marked the beginning of the now-legendary flavor of RAMEN SANTOUKA.
Using the same recipe that won over his family, Hatanaka decided to open his own ramen shop in March 1988, in Asahikawa, located on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido. The shop began modestly, with only 9 seats and one item on the menu—Shio Ramen (salt flavor),initially, the shop was just another ramen shop in a town famous for its tasty ramen, but once, the legendary taste of SANTOUKA was sampled, more and more hungry patrons soon followed.
Soon thereafter, the shop, was featured in magazines and TV shows such as “the ramen shop always filled to the brim.” Once other mass media and ramen aficionados found out about it, the shop’s popularity skyrocketed. The people of Hokkaido had never before tasted a thin-noodle ramen with such a delicious and elegant soup topped perfectly with mouthwatering slices of Char-siu pork and pickled plums.
It was also around this time when the SANTOUKA specialty Toroniku Char-siu pork first appeared on the menu. Hatanaka had wanted to delight food aware high school and college students with the most delectable Char-siu pork made from the “rarest of the rare” pork cheeks.
At the time he founded RAMEN SANTOUKA, Hatanaka wanted to develop a classic ramen for all to enjoy, made with a simple soup that could be savored to the last, spoonful and topped with a fabulous Char-siu pork, in essence, a masterfully assembled ramen whose superior ingredients and magnificent, robust flavor would truly stand out and long-lasting. Even with many shops located throughout Japan and in select international cities, the fundamentals of RAMEN SANTOUKA remain to this day unchanged.
There are 11 locations in the United States and countless other locations in Japan and around the world. I am glad that I gave ramen a try. Now whenever I order ramen somewhere else, I always compare it to Santouka Ramen. Nothing has beaten it yet!
Address: 665 Paularino Ave, Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Website: http://www.santouka.co.jp/en/
