拉麺亭 えぼし eboshi noodle bar: wafu simple
by rameniac | 11 Dec 2006
Lomita is a twenty-minute drive from downtown Los Angeles, thirty to forty minutes in afternoon traffic on the 110 freeway. With a noon lunch on the brain and a southern Californian’s sense of urgency, I arrived at Eboshi Noodle Bar somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 pm. Closed. I’d hit siesta, that stretch of hours from 2:30 to 5 when Japanese restaurants make like they’re Spanish and shut down for the afternoon. Do any other Asian establishments do that? I don’t think so.
With little else in mind, I circled around the South Bay looking for another bowl of ramen. Nothing. Everyone was taking a nap. Shisen. Shin-Mama. Hakata. Sure, Santouka in the Mitsuwa food court was open, but for the purposes of research, was in the mood for something besides the best ramen in Los Angeles (I eat there way too much as it is). Content to subsist on a few onigiri, I attempted to starve myself until Eboshi reopened for dinner. Dull hunger would make the noodles taste just that much better.
Five o’clock rolled around and I made my way back to the little ramen shop in the little corner mall with Gaja at the other end. STILL CLOSED. What the heck. I looked at the sign more closely. Closed Wednesdays. ghdfgjhdfjfvdffdb…
When I finally made it to Eboshi Noodle Bar (I tried again the next day), I came to understand why many Japanese ex-pats rate it as one of Southern California’s better ramen shops.
Does that mean its good?
Maybe the effort spent getting there soured me on the experience a bit, but I’m going to have to say… meh.
I’ll give credit where it’s due, however. There are countless mediocre assari-kei ramen shops in Southern California. Compared to the rest, Eboshi definitely comes closest to a traditional Tokyo ramen-ya. For one thing, you can really taste the “wafu” in the broth - that hint of dried bonito or aji dashi funkiness characteristic of Japanese soup stocks. The noodles themselves also hew towards the old-school - yellow, squiggly, and relatively springy. Toss in some sweetly pickled bamboo shoots, green onions (unfortunately not the oversized Tokyo kind), an okay slab of chashu and a surprisingly sensitive hard-boiled egg and you’ve got yourself a decent approximation of something you might find on a side street in Saitama.
Given such a nice wafu undercurrent, the ramen had potential. But ultimately, it succumbed to the same lack of depth that plagues many a bowl this side of the Pacific ocean. It’s just a little too bland, a little too one-dimensional in taste. I tried everything to fix the problem, from loading up on white pepper to putting a spoonful of vinegar in the soup. I admit, I was getting desperate. But sometimes you just have to accept the reality of the situation. Time to start saving up for my next plane ticket.
| very wafu in style, with a nice fishy flavor permeating the shoyu broth. most pronounced wafu flavor in town, but otherwise it’s far too bland. | 4 |
| springy and squiggly and fairly unique for yellow egg noodles in area ramen shops | 6 |
| the hard-boiled egg is thankfully not completely overcooked. the shinachiku (bamboo shoots) are surprsingly sweet, which may or may not be a good thing. overall, rather average. | 4 |
| edible but fairly common gyoza. not particularly exceptional | 5 |
| eboshi has a mildly cozy feel to it. warm lighting and a massive library of greasy old manga for the attention-deficit set | 2 |
| waitstaff fall on the cheerful side of the spectrum. just barely. | 1 |
2383 Lomita Blvd Ste 116
closed wednesdays | 14 |
