Ramen Yamadaya Culver City Review: Pork Overload

I had lunch today at the newly opened Ramen Yamadaya in Culver City today after our usual Wednesday farmer's market and Costco run. I had never been to the original Torrance location and am always on the lookout for the best ramen place, so I was excited to give it a try. We didn't have to wait for a table but there was occasional waits while we were there.

We ordered the Yamadaya Ramen with Tonkatsu Kotteri broth and the Spicy Ramen. Both were delicious. Both had a very deep, porky, rich milky broth. The Kotteri broth had extra savory depth from the black garlic oil as well as thick, melt in your mouth pieces of pork and back fat. It's definitely a dish for pork lovers. The "Yamadaya" style just added some more of the regular ramen toppings like seaweed, menma, and an extra egg to the dish, which was nice to balance out the richness. The Spicy Ramen actually had some decent heat, which is usually not the case with most spicy ramen out there, like at Santouka. The noodles were very thin, with pretty good texture, not too mushy. We switched dishes midway through the meal; I'm not sure that I could finish an entire bowl of one type of ramen as it is so rich and heavy, in slightly different ways. A little variety in broth definitely helps. You can tell how oily the broth is; both formed slight films on top after cooling down a bit. Overall, it is my new favorite ramen in the westside. I can't discern any MSG and I think the broth is better than Santouka and overall more interesting than Ramenya. It's definitely very heavy and very rich; it's been five hours since lunch and I'm still stuffed. I'll definitely be back as it was really good, but it's one of those places where I'll only go every once in awhile as it really is too much for regular consumption.

Yamadaya Ramen with Tonkatsu Kotteri broth

Spicy Ramen (spicy #2 on a scale of 3)

Pretty thin noodles

For only $4.50 extra, you get 4 pieces of Kara Age (fried chicken) and curry over rice. We got the combination to take home the curry and the chicken. We were so stuffed from the ramen alone, we couldn't eat another bite. Most people ordered the combination, not sure how they finished everything

Ramen Yamadaya
11172 Washington Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232
(310) 815-8776