A year ago, I wrote about some ramen joints in LA. From that point to now, there has been a lot of devel­op­ment in Down­town LA, espe­cial­ly in Lit­tle Tokyo. After get­ting back from my “short trip” from South­east Asia (Philippines/Thailand) recent­ly, I head­ed straight to Haka­ta Ramen SSG.

This spot just opened up from the SSG-line no less than a year ago. What I like about their resto (oth­er than their ser­vice) is how you can cus­tomize your ramen.

I usu­al­ly order a Haka­ta ramen w/ hard noo­dles (it gets to the right soft­ness by the time it gets on your table, and by the time you fin­ish tak­ing pho­tos ^^), light oil, and nor­mal soup base. I then get the extras: thick cut cha­su, and anoth­er tamago/egg. This just feels right after all is done; I’m one hap­py dude.

Anoth­er thing that I like about Haka­ta is its loca­tion. It’s locat­ed right across the Lit­tle Tokyo Plaza. You can either get 1‑hour free park­ing via val­i­da­tion by park­ing at the Office Depot park­ing lot; or you can park at the Plaza­’s park­ing lot for $7 (w/o val­i­da­tion; free with). With that, if I find that its too long of a wait at my oth­er favorite ramen spot (Daikokuya), I just head here. Also, if I find that I need some­thing sweet after my bowl of ramen, I just hit up the Yogurt­land lit­er­al­ly next door. With all of those pos­i­tives, how can you lose in hav­ing a Haka­ta Ramen bowl for your­self? You can’t!

But, lets not for­get about Daikokuya. This ramen is still on the top of my list. Sans the wait­ing-in-line just to sit down and eat, this is still the ramen to beat.

What I like about this place (again, oth­er than its ser­vice) is the gyoza. It’s just dif­fer­ent, and good. The por­tions are big. It comes with about 5 big pieces. Each… cra­dled with lots of love, care and deli­cious­ness.

So, just to update my list of favorite Los Ange­les Ramen Spots, here it is:1

1. Daikokuya
2. Haka­ta Ramen SSG
3. Kouraku

1. Keep­ing it to a max of top‑3. [↩]