What a healthy start to the day. Roll out of bed, drink some hot tea, and head over to Mitsuwa for some ramen. As the second and last vendor in the Legendary Ramen Fair at the Torrance location, Asameshi was dishing out noodles with lightning speed. Every inch of the food court was packed with diners, so I retreated to the overflow seating area around the corner.

The first thing I noticed was that Asameshi’s ramen was served in a ceramic bowl, instead of a plastic container like Sumire. By American standards, the bowl might be considered small. In actuality, it was probably a proper serving.

The surface was covered with thin strips of chashu pork, negi, and menma with a cold quarter egg floating to the side, sprinkled with black pepper. The slightly cloudy yellow broth was akin to a bowl of chicken soup in color and permeability. It was a good balance of flavor with the pork bones and dashi faintly detected in the mainly shoyu base. A thin layer of oil was present in the bowl, but it wasn’t overwhelmingly greasy.

The noodles were somewhat curly, yet on the thin side. I worked through them alongside the toppings till only a half bowl of broth remained. There was no problem cleaning out the rest of the bowl, as this ramen was significantly lighter on my stomach.

There was nothing particularly impressive about Asameshi’s ramen. I feel altogether neutral about it, like so many bowls I’ve eaten in the past. I’m sure I wouldn’t go out of my way to taste it again. It showcased a good mix of shoyu and tonkotsu broths and was a filling start to my day. And for that, it did it’s job well. So long to the Mitsuwa Legendary Ramen Fair!

For a limited time only, Mitsuwa is hosting the “Legendary Ramen Fair” at select locations in SoCal. Since Torrance is usually where I escape LA on the weekends, I was able to try out 2 of the 3 overall ramen stores. The 3rd ramen shop was only at the San Diego location and I’m not that gung-ho to drive all the way there just for noodles. Ok, I did think about it.

My 1st tasting was that of Sumire Ramen hailing from Sapporo, Japan. Even though I’m not a big fan of miso ramen, I ponied up and shelled out the cash for a bowl. Number in hand, I went to claim my feast a short 5 minutes later.

 It arrived in a moderately sized red plastic bowl on fire from the kitchen. Thankfully there was complimentary cold water in large coolers for the taking. The broth was split into layers like a jar of natural peanut butter with the base of thick miso covered by a noticeable coat of oil floating on the surface. In the center a pile of sliced negi (Japanese spring onions) stayed afloat surrounded by mostly submerged menma(seasoned bamboo shoots) and chashu pork chunks.

Deep ramen diving brought up chopsticks full of curly thick noodles. Assuming that the soup would have cooled down to a comfortable degree, I took a tongue burning sip of the thick fluid. It was still red hot, kept so by the scalding gratuitous layer of surface oil. After a proper amount of time spent stirring the mixture, I dove in again. The soup base was artery hardening rich, smoothly coating my mouth as it slipped down to my stomach. It wasn’t salty as I had come to expect.

The noodles were firm, yet tender enough to transport miso broth on their healthy strands. The menma complemented the soup, their almost crunchy texture adding character to the mix. Small moist fatty cubes of chashu pork disintegrated like hot butter under my molars. I also came up with quite a few bits of ground up meat, presumably pork, in the bottom of the bowl.

Sumire served up quite a remarkable bowl of ramen which changed my mind completely about what good miso ramen tastes like. I just couldn’t go near any excess broth after finishing the noodles because of the copious amount of oil. Even so, the bowl did me under an hour later like a Sunday dim sum meal, hitting my stomach like a load of bricks.

See you next year, Sumire!

*photos taken with Sony DSC-T200