Noodling Around: Mien Trung, Pho Lucky, Santouka, and Ramen Yamadaya

I believe I've mentioned that over the last couple of years, rice has been replaced as my starch of choice by noodles. Never has it been more apparent than over the last two hectic, busy weeks at work. Sheeesh....and like I've also said before, I don't think this blog would still be in existence were it not for Cathy and Ed from Yuma. Who always come to the rescue.

Anyway, long days, meant more than my fair share of long strips of dough. Here's a round-up.

Mien Trung:

There's nothing like a spicy, sweat inducing,  end to the day....and soup is good too! Mien Trung just does Bun Bo Hue right for me; spicy, salty, sour, is the formula. The soup is always hot which welcomes the shredded veggies and herbs. When the broth does edge toward salty, a touch of lime tames the sodium.

The Missus still enjoys the Bun Rieu, though She take umbrage to Mien Trung's switching of the noodles for the Bun Rieu to the wrong style.

Mien Trung Restaurant
7530 Mesa College Dr
San Diego, CA 92111

Pho Lucky:

I wanted a real bowl of Pho Bo Kho after the lack luster version at Spotted Cow, even though I had to wait a couple of weeks.

This bowl had twice the meat, twice the flavor, and was cheaper than the food court equivalent.

Oh, and there was a fire sale on tendon on this day....must have been a "Lucky" one for me.

Pho Lucky
9326 Mira Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92126

Santouka Ramen:

A cold snap means that the Missus is looking forward to ramen. Her favorite is still Santouka's Shio Toroniku Ramen with Egg, not cheap, but totally comfort food. This one with Chasu Gohan added.

Ramen's popularity has spawned one good thing....folks understand ramen now. I hardy hear all that whining about how ramen is so expensive compared to pho. Well, I still hear it sometimes, perhaps I've just gotten better at ignoring it.

Santouka Ramen
4240 Kearny Mesa Rd
San Diego, CA 92111

Ramen Yamadaya:

**** Ramen Yamadaya has closed

I gotta ask....what happened here?

We ordered the Kotteri (extra rich) Tonkotsu and got this, watery and bland. A far cry from what I had just a couple of weeks ago. This was rather insipid and barely past lukewarm in temperature.

The chasu has improved and the kakuni pork was pretty good too. But the main reason we choose Yamadaya is for the broth.

This was disappointing......

Ramen Yamadaya
4706 Clairement Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92117

Comments

[Jinxieats]

Hi Kirk, too bad about Yamadaya. I was there last week and it seemed great as usual... hope you got a bad batch...
Lucky for you on the tendons! One of my favorite parts of beef, by far.

[Faye]

I'm always happy when I know the majority of the restaurants you mention in a post. The only one I have not been to is Mien T but I want to make it there to try that soup by end of the year. I've been on a ramen kick lately (well, buying the packaged stuff from markets and coming home to make em). Good stuff :)

[Kirk]

Hi Jinxi - Yes, I did get "lucky" at Lucky with regard to the beef tendon! ;o) Man, that broth at Yamadaya was terrible.....we'll see in a couple of weeks.

Hi Faye - I'm glad you enjoyed the post!

[janfrederick]

I actually prefer the small noodles in the Bun Rieu now. I find it easier to build bites in my spoon. I'm not a huge slurper because soup specks on my specs are annoying. I guess I could always lick them off afterwards. ;)

[kat]

sad looking ramen but everything looked pretty nice! hope you get some time off soon, Kirk!

[Kirk]

Hi Jan - The noodles for Bun Rieu should be the thinner bun....but the version MT is using is way too thin and totally wrong.

Thanks Kat!

[R]

I go to Lucky so much that sometimes I wonder if I have ever run into you at the restaurant!

Interesting - I was there today actually and did notice a bit more tendons than usual in my bowl of Pho too.

I do complain *all the time* - at least to myself anyway - that Ramen is a lot more expensive than Pho. I was just at RakiRaki recently for the first time. To me, it was the worst rip off ever. The taste was not bad by any means, but the portions were tiny - you get 4 (if I remember correctly) tiny thin pieces of pork, even after requesting extra meat, and the overall portion wasn't even a 1/3rd of the bowl. Not that other Ramen places have good protein portions, but RakiRaki lacked *both* protein AND overall portions, which made it just disappointing. Not exactly cheap either...

[Kirk]

Perhaps you have R! If you only knew how much product it took to make one bowl of good tonkotsu ramen. I do think that Raki Raki is a bit over-priced and runs its own hype machine, though that could easily be said of Underbelly as well. Still, great ramen has that "aaaah" factor!