ramen yamadaya : tonkotsu ramen in culver city.

i love ramen, and i try to go to all the best spots on LA. my favorites are daikokuya, santouka and shinsengumi - and all for different reasons. i'd recently heard of yamadaya and lots of good things, so i had to go try it.

obviously, that their broth is made from boiling pork bones, was a very, very good sign. it's the only way to do it, and what makes tonkotsu just so darn good.

we ordered a side of the kara-age chicken, and both had the tonkotsu kotteri - rich and fatty ramen with black garlic oil. i always get the kotteri at daikokuya, and i usually try to get the equivalent at the various ramen places i visit. the fattier the better, but yamadaya might be a bit too much for me.

it was quite good. the broth was definitely super thick and fatty - the texture, creamy. while being super fatty, it wasn't particularly flavorful, and i was really hoping for more of that black garlic oil. the noodles are thin and "hard" - my favorite kind. all in all, it was a really good ramen. i still like daikokuya and santouka's soup better. their noodles are as good as shinsengumi though (where you have the option of how "hard" you want your noodles). and really, the kara-age chicken really just kicked ass. one major problem was that the soup was so fatty that if you let it sit for more than a minute, it would coagulate and look like this:

anyway, it's definitely going on my list of top LA ramen, and i'll definitely be going back, but next time i may try a non-kotteri version.

update: panorama taken by james:

---

ramen yamadaya
11172 washington boulevard
culver city, ca
310.815.8776