NSP: The Perfect Bowl

Gardena Ramen

1840 W 182nd St

Torrance, CA 90504

Ramen is the noodle soup that above all others deserves its own blog.  This is perhaps because ramen has been subject to over 400 years of uptight, obsessive Japanese tweaking. The rules are simple -- a pork-based soup broth flavored with soy, miso or plain salt; add noodle, pork chashu, assorted add-ons and bits (canned bamboo, shoyu egg, butter). But the simplicity of the dish is what lends itself to the characteristic Japanese rage for both perfectionism and localism. Ramen is to the Japanese as the kennel club is to the British bourgeoisie -- a chance to cultivate regional differences while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of a single perfected form.

If Gardena Ramen's ramen were a pedigreed breed, it would be a blonde labrador, the ideal everyman's dog: loyal, noble, unaffected. Walk into Gardena Ramen and you are greeted by an elderly Japanese lady and the wonderful scent of long stewing pork bones. The menu is posted on the wall and there are only three items -- Ramen in two flavors -- miso or shoyu -- and a side order of gyoza. A simple affair. Five minutes after being seated, this is what arrives at your table.

The soup is light and almost clear. The noodles are straight, striking a nice balance between softness and chewiness. All of which amounts to a straightforward, unadulterated bowl of ramen which carries its flavors from bowl to mouth with admirable clarity and precision. Everything is there. No special ingredients, no gimmicks, no imported noodles, no conspicuous symbols of rustic Japanese life. Just an excellent bowl of noodles served hot and quick, by an adorable and doting Japanese grandmother. What more could the asian couple ask for?

Asa Ramen

18202 S Western

Gardena, CA 90248

The problem with this feel-good story of an asian couple and their golden lab is that right across the street from Gardena is Asa, this beast of a ramen house. After much deliberation, we both agree that while Gardena is a perfectly respectable lab with all its papers in order, Asa is a Rhodesian ridgeback. Fearless, bold, unmistakable, powerful, and salty. 

Asa Ramen is an unassuming spot in the unassuming strip mall that includes other establishments like Salty Sports and Golf and a tempura and udon house. The only clue for the non-Japanese that one has arrived at the right ramen place is a welcoming whiteboard sitting outside the frontdoor proclaiming it 'Asa.' Open 6pm to 2am. 

Inside, Asa is tiny. Three or four tables and a truncated bar. The decor is, in contrast to Gardena's anti-design minimalism, a designed minimalism. The menu is divided down the middle, with Japanese on the left, English on the right. Compared to Gardena, Asa presents you with a vertiginous array of choices. Regular and large size bowls. 'Rich' and 'light' shoyu (no miso). And six types of takoyaki (more on that below). After a pretty tense wait, this is what comes out of the kitchen: 

That is what the surface of Jupiter would look like if Jupiter was a bowl of ramen. Marbled chashu that tastes like it has been salted and preserved. A perfect soft-boiled shoyu egg (metaphors fail me here, this egg is just really good and again, soft-boiled perfection), and gorgeous silken ramen noodle that holds up against the searing heat of the soup. And the soup: a cascade of sensation, a wall of sound (er, taste). There is a deep savoriness that works in exact counterpoint to the sharp and insistent saltiness. A layer of floating pork oil covers the whole thing, sealing the entire bowl and keeping its hellish convections currents rolling until your spoon breaks through. 

And so we are torn. While we admire Asa Ramen for its virtuosity, its complexity, its integrity, its serious and uncompromised deliciousness, we are nevertheless delighted by Gardena Ramen, by its naked simplicity, its lack of pretense and ambition, which somehow only amplifies its demure charms. Luckily for us, these two deserving ramen spots occupy different noodle soup niches -- Gardena being the perfect lunch spot for the sober light of day; Asa being the first place to pop into mind at around 1:00 am, when all you need is a strong bowl of ramen to regain equilibrium and get the world back on your side. It's good to have choices.

Nem Nuong Khanh Hoa

Nem Nuong Khanh Hoa

9738 Westminster Ave.

Westminster, CA 92684

By no means has the NSP come to an end, but we at ACM feel that it is time to expand our evaluations of Things Delicious to other types of Asian (and come to think of it, also other types of non-Asian) fare.

He, in particular, is forcing the issue, insisting that we have discovered his new "favorite" Vietnamese place  in the OC.  I, on the other hand, while with great appreciation for the new place, am still quite hesitant to let go of the old place (Luc Dinh Ky, reviewed previously).  

Nem Nuong Khanh Hoa specializes in nem nuong, a fresh roll originating from Central Vietnam similar in its construction to the Southern goi cuon, but nem nuong contains grilled pork cake rather than fresh shrimp and includes a crunchy fried rice paper in the middle.  Khanh Hoa also serves a shrimp paste-grilled-on-sugarcane version, cha tom nuong.  Both rolls are quite good and are offered in two ways: the "Made For You" form and the "Do It Yourself" form.  Depending on how you're feeling that day, you can satisfactorily have it however you'd like.  (T.I. would like them, perhaps.)  Khanh Hoa provides an ample and wide variety of greens to incorporate into your roll and all of the ingredients they provide are fresh.  

I am usually feeling lazy, and so I order them pre-made, although I'd probably be more likely to order them deconstructed if he were to roll all of mine for me, as he has impressive rolling skills and makes interesting, exceptional rolls.

Anyway, back to the rolls themselves:

- The ingredients are fresh.  I can't emphasize this enough.

- The proteins are well-made and well-seasoned.  They are flavorful enough to be described as "porky" or "shrimpy" but they're not overly meaty or dry and they remain crisp on the outside and tender on the inside even if you've left them to sit for a half hour while you eat other things.

-  The crisp rice paper inside gives the roll a dynamic texture: soft-crunch-soft-pork.  It's neither oily nor too thick and therefore doesn't distract from the roll's central focus, the meat.

- There's no hint of laziness in the preparation of these rolls.  If you get them pre-made, you'll see the nem nuong is tightly rolled.  There's neither too little nor too much of any ingredient, and the proteins are still hot inside of their soft white rice paper when the plate reaches your table.  

How lovely.

And then there's the sauce that comes with nem nuong.  It is not nuoc mam (fish sauce) or a spiced and altered hoisin sauce.  I am not entirely sure what's in it, except that I know it contains fish sauce.  Next time you see her, ask my Mom.  

We ate other things at Khanh Hoa too, actually.  Here's the run down in the order of which dishes I liked most:

1. Banh beo chen: This dish is mostly steamed rice flour with dried shrimp, dried garlic, and green onion on top served with nuoc mam.  It's been one of my favorite things since I was like, 2.  Khanh Hoa serves them steamed into individual small dishes.  I like to add nuoc mam directly into the dish and then scoop with a spoon or slurp the banh beo directly into my mouth.  They've mastered the texture issues that other places tend to have, and again the ingredients are Fresh.  Words to describe good banh beo: Salty, light, onion-y, and squishy with an occasional slight crisp from the dried shrimp.  

2. Bun tom thit nuong: This dish, grilled shrimp and pork over cold rice noodles, is served in many Vietnamese restaurants.  They make it particularly well here, as their grilled pork is nicely seasoned, their vegetables are fresh (that word again), and their noodles are slippery, but not hard.  The portions are adequate with the exception of the shrimp, in that I only had 3 in my bowl.  

3. Ap chao thap cam don: He was thoroughly impressed with this one.  It consists of a combination of seafood, other meats, and vegetables served over deep fried noodles (in this case, wide rice noodles) and smothered in a smooth gravy.  Texturally (close your eyes), it's like biting into the unknown.  Will this bite be crunchy with a piece of chewy calamari or will this bite be soft with a gravy covered tender piece of beef?  Who knows?!  Who cares?!

 

4. And lastly, there's the banh khot.  Banh khot at Khanh Hoa is very similar to their banh beo except deep fried.  Khanh Hoa's banh khot can be skipped.  It tastes like their banh beo without any other appealing qualities.  The banh is too thick and exceptionally greasy.  There is little incentive for me to order their banh khot when I have the option of ordering the banh beo.  I've had banh khot at other restaurants, and it was made with a slightly different "dough" which was lighter, still crispy but not tough, and it contained just a simple whole shrimp.  Try your first banh khot elsewhere if you've never had it. Try Khanh Hoa's if you've already had many.  

Overall, Nem Nuong Khanh Hoa is a great place.  They have excellent hot tea, the service  is always friendly, and the coffee is strong.  Oh yeah, if you're interested, they also serve noodle soup.   

Duke of Mountain Deer

Luc Dinh Ky

9812 Bolsa Avenue, Suite 100 

Westminster, CA 92683

Editor's Warning: The following review contains such words as "pastiche" and "bricoleur".  Who ever says "pastiche" in conversation?  What a jerk.

It's 1:30 in the morning and the party has degenerated in the worst possible way. Looking around you realize that when the police come around again to break this thing up, you won't want to be at the after party with any of these people. Someone has put on that Queen song for the second time and the white people are on the dance floor, elbows flying, knees bending in an uneasy syncopation. It's time to make your early exit. Grab your jacket and pretend like you're headed out front to answer a phone call or maybe smoke a cigarette. Once you're at the car, there is only one place to go -- up the 405 to Luc Dinh Ky, where every one knows your name, or at least knows what you want: Luc Dinh Ky house special rice noodle, size large, soup on the side. 

This is a proprietary noodle soup, found, as far as I can tell, nowhere else in the Bolsa-Brookhurst food supercomplex known as Little Saigon. Come to Luc Din Ky on any night from 12 to 3 am and it's packed with grandparents, nuclear families, club kids and employees from other Vietnamese restaurants. For the great majority, they are here for one thing: the house special noodle soup. The soup itself is pork based, a clear, porky concoction that is simple and rather indistinct. This is because the soup serves to merely moisten the noodles, served separately in its own bowl. The noodles are flat rice noodles sitting in a delicious sauce, a kind of sweet-savory brown gravy. Buried in this mixture of soup and sauce is a pastiche of good old noodle soup standards -- thin slices of BBQ pork, one or two steamed shrimp, fish cake, steamed chicken thigh, a hardboiled egg, fish ball, fresh, crisp choy, green onions, fried garlic -- all things to all people! 

The miracle of Luc Dinh Ky's noodle soup lies in the unexpected juxtaposition of disparate and seemingly arbitrary components. This is, for lack of a better term, a poststructuralist noodle soup. The soup is over there, the noodles are here. From spoon to mouth, we, the bricoleur, are confronted with any number of tasty permutations -- noodle, soup, fish ball, green onion; noodle, no soup, shrimp, choy; no noodle, soup, fish ball, fish cake, garlic, etc. etc. To heave everything towards the realm of the absurd, we can observe that there is no single soup here, nor is there a single soup-maker; but only the unfolding drama between hunger and freedom, between the soup-eater and the materials at hand. Each trip to Luc Dinh Ky becomes an engagement with the idea of sustenance on two levels -- the material (the question of what kind of soup you will have) and the existential (the question of what kind of soup-eater you want to be). 

In brief: Luc Dinh Ky is the only place where this guy goes for soup.

Update: Luc Dinh Ky, as excellent as it is, is no longer my favorite spot in Fountain Valley. The new spot coming soon!