Different - but tasty concept - binchotan grilled chicken ramen in a creamy chicken broth.
Decent chew on a medium caliber noodle (bucatini thickness).
Can’t say I have ever had such a smokey taste in a soup - it’s a little like kissing a cigarette smoker.
For fans of Yakitori ya Toshi San is helping them get off the ground and working there for now. Counter and dining spaces are cleaned up but still the yakitori ya footprint.
Suntory Premium malts is the beer
Kissing a cigarette smoker can be pleasant or extremely unpleasant depending on the situation and person. 
Would you go back?
Did you go today? Looks like they said they were closed 3 days ago due to an electrical issue.
Putting this on my to do it list! Walk-in is fine i assume?
Yes - today
Yes - opened at 11:30 and was pretty full by noon.
Ohmigod, we were just on Sawtelle ourselves today not far from there!
Going there now to have a corrective experience of the dreck I had earlier today from elsewhere…
Thanks for the heads up, @CiaoBob. The broth is lovely and indeed almost creamy (a lot of cornstarch?). Egg and chicken chasu both very nicely seasoned.
We decided to avoid the BBQ chicken ramen based on your comments, and the BBQ chicken over a rice was just great.
BTW this and Ramen Ochi, we’ve got some amazing ramen in the “immediate” West LA area…
So jealous you made it first 
will definitely be there in the next 2 days
To suggest they use cornstarch to thicken their soup… some would find that offensive.
Thickened with chicken heads and feet! (Gelatine)
I’ve made it clear multiple times across that I don’t cook. In addition to informing me that I’m being offensive, you could’ve also provided information on how you think (or know) it was thickened, which I (and anyone else who doesn’t cook) would’ve found very helpful.
Great bounce on the noodles, lovely broth -heavy charcoal flavor / smoke on the chicken but it all works together. Will definitely be back
Ended up in here by accident looking for a quick meal for the kids after Kumon. Watching them prepare bowls of ramen and charring the chicken I remembered @CiaoBob’s post about kissing a smoker and came here to confirm this was the same spot. I’m far from a ramen expert, but I love ramen and I really enjoyed my bowl here. The flavor was more char than smoke to me as in I was reminded of backyard BBQ rather than Texas smoked meats. The kids loved their fried chicken and ground chicken bowls. The latter so sweet that I don’t think any kids would say they didn’t like it. Very nice alternative to the bowls of liquid pig you can get on Sawtelle. I’ll be back.
@CiaoBob Did you see Toshi-san working there? I’m really hoping he decides to resurrect Yakitoriya in some form in the near future
Ramen soup bases can be broken down into two main catagories.
Chintan - clear soup focused on clarity of stock.
Paitan - cloudy soup where the bones are cooked much longer breaking down all sorts of stuff into the broth (the menu here says slow cooked but in my experience this usually means a pretty good boil for a very long time).
Most shops in LA serve tonkotsu broth which is a pork bone based paitan. It looks to me like this shop is a Tori-paitan where mostly or all the base stock is from chicken bones (and feet and skin) that are boiled over a very very long period of time or with a pressure cooker (how you do it at home) until they are falling apart. Lots of shops also blend the bones into the stock after they are soft enough to create a thick emulsion.
I don’t know what they are doing here specifically but chances of it being corn starch are…quite low. I’m by no means a ramen chef but I don’t know if I’ve seen cornstarch in a Japanese ramen soup -but I imagine it could be in something like a mapo tofu ramen at a machichuka shop?
I once read a recipe on blog of someone trying to make a paitan broth at home and wondering where the grit was from that they had at a shop so they blended cauliflower and I just thought “that very fine grit at the shop is probably bone dust” which happens depending how you strain it after blending.
This is all very broad stuff as there’s sometimes dozens of ingredients that go into a soup. I def want to try this place.
Yes
He was there at opening hour their first week
Don’t know how long he’s staying on
