New 52 | Week 14: Real Ramen

A few weeks ago I had a Twitter conversation with Liz Tamanaha of Paislee Press. She asked me if I'd ever had real ramen before... the kind NOT from a package at the grocery store. I told her I've had it once, but can't remember how much I liked it. She told me I should go get some real ramen from a Japanese noodle house. Well, she didn't have to tell me twice, because I LOVE noodles. I love noodles so much that I named my cat Noodle. :p

But, I had never been to any real Japanese ramen noodle house in San Diego. So I went on a quest on Yelp to find the one with the highest number of reviewers and rating. I came up with two. Tajima, and Santouka inside the Mitsuwa Marketplace. We decided on Santouka because I wanted to also check out the Mitsuwa Japanese market, which I had never been to before. Also, my friend Richard at work, who's half-Japanese, recommended Santouka.

So on Saturday night (4/2), we met our friend Roby at Mitsuwa Marketplace. Dejah was a way at a conference, so Roby was game for some eating out. Santouka was pretty packed at 6:30PM. The seating was food-court style. Upon checking out the menu, we discovered that it was cash-only. Good thing there was an ATM right there, next to the restaurant, inside Mitsuwa Marketplace.

You have four choices of the ramen broth: salt, soy sauce, miso, or spicy miso.

Both Todd and Roby got the spicy miso:


While I got the regular miso:


I got the meal deal that came with the bowl of rice with scallions and seaweed, and a soy sauce marinated egg.


We were too busy eating to remember to take photos of each other enjoying the food. Todd was scared of the ramen, because he didn't think he would like the fatty slices of pork and eggy flavors. Turns out, we all really enjoyed it! Todd even said, "I'd eat this again."

So, our first San Diego ramen experience was a success! We will probably hit up Tajima next, and maybe Yakitori Yakyudori and Ramen next time.

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About This Project

New52 is a project started by Peppermint and I to encourage each other and others around us to try something new every week in 2011. The "new" each week doesn't have to be something big. It could be something as simple as ordering a new dish instead of old standbys at your favorite restaurant. It's simply opening your heart up to NEW possibilities.

Don't worry if you're late getting started on joining in. It's totally OK if you miss a week here or there. We encourage everyone to keep an open mind about trying something new. This is a life project, and a photography/blog and even scrap challenge if you wish. If you participate this week, please leave a link to your blog post in the link list below. You can also post images to our New 52 Flickr Group! We would love to see what you were inspired to do.