Mottainai Ramen Review: Decadent Ramen in Gardena

After picking up the floor sample Louis Ghost chair from Room & Board's Torrance distribution center and before the TUF / Torrance Symphony Taiwan Night Concert, we went to Mottainai Ramen in the Marukai Pacific strip mall in Gardena.  I've heard a lot about Ramen Mottainai from various respected food blogs and have been eager to check it out.  I like the look and feel of the place; it's bright, cheery and fun. 

We ordered the salad, gyoza,  Tokyo Props Shoyu Ramen with the shiro white magic bomb, and the Sapporo Miso Ramen with the co

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rn butter magic bomb.  The salad was really good, huge with asparagus, romaine, corn, tomatoes, and a light ginger miso dressing.  It's also a nice since ramen shops are usually short on the greens.  The gyoza was also good, a little more porky rather than vegetable-y than most gyoza that I've tried at ramen shops.  The shoyu ramen was delicate and refined, made a little richer with the shiro white magic bomb, which is a little melon sized ball of pork fat and garlic.  I loved the Miso ramen.  It was different from any other miso ramen I've ever had, much more complex.  It had a wonderfully smoky flavor which gave the dish a lot of depth.  During the cooking process, I saw flames leaping out of a wok; I'm not sure exactly what was on fire, but I really enjoyed the smoky flavor it added to the broth.  The corn butter was the recommended magic bomb by the waiter, and I liked the extra texture and flavor from the corn.  It's a very rich and heavy dish; I was full and very thirsty for hours afterwards.  Prices were reasonable at around $7 for a ramen dish (then +$1.50 for the magic bombs).  Gyoza was less than $3 and the salad was about $5.  Unfortunately, only iphone pictures to share:

Sapporo Miso Ramen with Corn Butter bomb

Tokyo Props Shoyu Ramen

Shiro Magic Bomb with Pork Fat and Garlic

Mottainai Ramen
1630 West Redondo Beach Avenue, #9
Gardena, CA  90247 
(310) 538-3250

Rosemary Mustard Roasted Pork Loin with Pancetta

Before

Before also

After

I've been on a bit of a cooking kick this week and it's been fun! Last night, I made rosemary mustard rubbed roasted pork loin with pancetta and it was a hit.  I'll definitely make this again, with a few minor modifications.  I basically started with Giada's recipe, with some modifications.  Most notably, I used very thinly sliced pancetta instead of bacon, which I think adds a more subtle and refined flavor, some agave nectar and altered the cooking time.  The roast pork was really delicious; the mustard, agave, rosemary crust and crisp pancetta flavor really infused into the pork.  There was great depth of porky flavor, and the mustard rub was really savory and tasty, not at all too sharp or pungent, and the rosemary added nice depth of flavor.  It also makes the house smell amazing! The pork was still quite tender and juicy, although in the future, I would probably brine it for extra moisture and perhaps only cook it to 145 degrees.  I prefer my pork medium well as opposed to completely well done.  I threw in some fingerling potatoes to roast at the bottom of the rack (seasoned with just a little salt, pepper and olive oil) and also roasted some yellow striped beets (wrapped in foil) in the same pan, for a light roasted beet, burrata, toasted walnut salad with champaigne shallot vinaigrette, that was the perfect accompaniment to the pork.

Finally, we had a wonderful wine with the meal: we opened our first 2008 vintage bottle of Rivers Marie Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir.  It was delicious and complemented the meal so perfectly.  It had a wonderful cherry nose with rich and full yet silky taste and beautiful long finish.  I didn't think it was too young to drink, although I'm happy we still have two more bottles.  Rivers Marie is so incredibly consistent from vintage to vintage and always so delicious; it's definitely one of my favorite, if not my favorite, pinot noir producer (thanks to M. for the introduction).  It's a fairly big, very approachable pinot noir, with just enough elegance and restraint to not be cloying, as some California pinots can be.  Everyone who tastes it loves it, even people who normally aren't pinot fans; the mailer is due to come this week and I'm excited to order some of their 2009 offerings, I'll definitely be maxing out my allocation this year.

Rosemary Mustard Roasted Pork Loin with Pancetta Recipe (serves 4):

• The day before I would brine the pork loin.  I didn't brine it this time and it was still really good, but I think it would be even better with brining.  I'd use a reduced volume version of my turkey brine.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Mix together chopped rosemary leaves from 1-2 stalks of rosemary, 3-4 cloves of minced garlic, 1/2 cup of dijon mustard, 2 TB of whole grain mustard, 2 TB of agave nectar.  I used a food processor, but I don't think it was necessary and cleanup was more work than it was worth
• Generous slather a 2 1/4 lb pork loan with the mustard and herb mixture.  Then lay thinly sliced pieces of pancetta on all the exposed surfaces of the pork, overlapping the pancetta to ensure full coverage. I used probably about 1/5 - 1/4 lb of Fra Mani pancetta from Whole Foods.  I let the pork roast sit for about 20 minutes to marinate a bit before cooking
• Tie up the pork loin using three pieces of butcher twine.  It's probably easiest if you lay the butcher twine underneath the pork before slathering it with mustard and laying on the pancetta.  Transfer the pork loan to a roasting rack on a roasting pan.  Line the roasting pan with aluminum foil (otherwise clean-up sucks).  I also tossed some beets seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper and wrapped in aluminum foil on the roasting rack.  Stick in the meat thermometer into the thickest part.  I made the mistake of sticking the meat thermometer in later and stuck it too shallow.
• Roast for 1 hour.  Continue roasting, checking in 10 minute intervals until the thermometer reads 145-155 degrees.  Cover with foil if the pancetta browns too much.  I had to cook the pork for almost two hours, but part of the reason was that I kept on taking it in and out of the oven with my meat thermometer snafus.  About half an hour into the roasting, I threw in a couple of fingerling potatoes (seasoned with a little olive oil, salt and pepper) in the bottom of the pan, and also removed the beets after about an hour, for the salad.
• When the pork is done, transfer the pork loin to a serving plate, tent with aluminum foil and let it rest for 20 minutes.  Untie the butchers twine and carve into 1-1.25" slices.

Persimmon Toast

We are on persimmon overload over here as they are so perfectly ripe right now and I hate letting food go bad and throwing it out.  For lunch yesterday, I basically had my persimmon salad on a piece of toast and it was equally delicious.  The persimmon is so soft that it can be spread like a jam and the result was delicious and decadent.

I made it to the Lululemon Brentwood run club last night and it was a lot of fun; I highly recommend it for anyone in the Brentwood / Santa Monica area.  Instead of running the same trail every week, they like to mix it up, which is good because you are actually working on improving your running.  Last night, we did about 1.5 miles run, with a bunch of big hill repetitions in between.  It was great; I'm not usually a hill runner, but I managed to keep up.  I find running with a group of people to really push me harder, which is great.  It's way too easy to give up on your own.  I'll try to make run club a regular part of my workouts, we'll see how successful I am.  They usually have one of their ambassadors, a marathon runner, lead the run club, but he was out of town this week running a marathon.

Beautiful Santa Monica January Days

Yesterday was a gorgeous day at the beach; the waters were a beautiful rich sparkling blue.  I've rarely seen the ocean look so inviting.  After quite the cool and rainy start to the new year, the weather has warmed up nicely; it's currently a very enjoyable 70 degrees in Santa Monica.  It will be perfect for my early evening run!  I was by the beach for the Santa Monica Wednesday farmer's market.  Nothing new or exciting to report, there were a bit more offerings than last week, but just the same winter produce that we've had for the last few months: winter squash, root vegetables, dark leafy greens, citrus and some lingering apples.  I couldn't find any more pears, but there was a lot more variety of citrus and they had some awesome chanterelles.  I bought some salad greens, fingerling potatoes, beets, rosemary, parsley, cilantro and hachiya persimmons.  I've been cooking a little more this week and plan to make a pork loin roast for the weekend.

After more errands, we stopped at Tacos Por Favor for some tasty tacos.  It was packed, but delicious as usual. 

Al pastor on the left, chorizo and cheese on the right

lengua taco

Random chicken tikka masala picture from earlier this week.  I basically followed my original recipe, but subbed leftover half and half for the heavy cream, which turned out fine, and added some Japanese curry powder.  Everyone really enjoyed this dish; the heat was nice for the winter.

Sweet and Savory First Courses

I made a couple of sweet and savory dishes for dinner last night: speck, hachiya persimmon, Gioia burrata salad with balsamic vinaigrette and maple bacon wrapped dates.  We bought beautiful, perfectly ripe persimmons at the farmer's market this morning, and they were perfect with the salty, smoky speck and the rich and creamy burrata.  Jen's bacon wrapped dates were the hit of the New Years Eve party so I made them at home with maple bacon and medjool dates from Costco.  I love the extreme sweetness of the dates and maple syrup from the maple bacon, against the salty bacon.  It's very addicting, just like candy.  We also had our staple sake salmon, paired with some sake and riesling, for a delicious and very filling meal.

Bacon Wrapped Dates:

• Soak 8 toothpicks in water and preheat the oven to 350 degrees
• Cut 4 slices of bacon in half and pit 8 dates
• Wrap the bacon around the dates, pinning the overlapping ends with the toothpick
• Bake on a baking sheet lined with foil or on a rack for 20-30 minutes until done.  I like them done when the edges start to crisp