Tsujita Artisan Noodle

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Sawtelle
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Posted June 1, 2014

So a few weeks ago, I went to Tsujita for dinner. I wanted to come back for lunch to try the tsukemen style ramen, which is what it’s most known for. Across the street nearby is its sister store, Tsujita Annex which serves ramen the entire day. This one for the time being only serves ramen for lunch, and it does have a slightly different menu. For a Sunday morning at 11 AM, there were no lines or wait. It pays to solo dine, sometimes.

Note for 2022 migration: this is an old post from my other defunct blog.

Food

I ordered the Char Siu Tsukemen. The noodles are how I prefer: thick. The char siu was very tender with good sized portions. The lime was an interesting addition. The broth itself had some fish and pork flavors that were kind of conflicting to me. Regardless, the broth was a little cold for me. Each dip of the noodles had a very sharp contrasting temperature between warm and not so warm. Inside the broth, there were more chunks of pork as well as the normal runny boiled eggs you get with ramen. The broth was also reasonably fatty but also salty. Now, despite my harsh feelings about this, it’s by no means bad. It’s just not as good as I was expecting from all these rave reviews. When you drizzle the lime over the noodles prior to dipping into the tsukemen broth, it does give it a different flavor aspect. This particular flavor was actually pretty good as I might try this at home before mixing noodles into broth. The lime itself is a natural seasoning that in some ways nullifies the saltiness of the tsukemen broth. I could not finish the broth as it was just a bit too salty for me, but nonetheless, the char siu tsukemen overall was fairly decent.

With the tsukemen, I also ordered a side of spicy tuna don. Surprisingly, I thought this was way better than the ramen. The quality of the tuna was actually pretty good, and it was similar to the spicy tuna in my Tsujita bento box dinner.

Final Verdict

In the end, this ramen place is good, but a little over-hyped. I really like the noodles, and the broth is good but a bit salty. If you do end up coming here, I would at the very least get the tuna bowl with your ramen entree. That actually is worth space in your stomach. Oh yeah, cash only for lunch.

My current choices for LA ramen in no particular order:

  • Ramen Yamadaya (Torrance location)
  • Robata JINYA (Los Angeles, W 3rd Street)

Other LA ramen places I’ve been to:

  • Ajisen Ramen (Century City)
  • Asa Ramen (Torrance)
  • Daikokuya (Little Tokyo)
  • Eboshi Noodle Bar (Lomita/Torrance)
  • Happy Cup Ramen Truck (food truck)
  • Mama Ramen (Torrance)
  • Men Bei (Torrance)
  • Ramen Hayatemaru (Torrance)
  • Ramen Jinya (Mid-Wilshire)
  • Ramen Yamadaya (Culver City, Torrance)
  • Santouka (Mitsuwa in West LA, Torrance, Orange County)
  • Shinsengumi (Gardena)
  • Tatsu Ramen (Sawtelle)
  • Tsujita Artisan (Sawtelle)

Revisions

  1. Nov 13, 2022 - Migrated post from other blog.
  2. Jun 1, 2014 - Initial revision.