This small little ramen house in Little Tokyo is a jewel. It’s been acclaimed by foodies alike for its authentic Japanese ramen, reasonable prices, and most importantly how damn tasty the ramen is!

Atmosphere: It’s easy to miss this place if it weren’t for the yellow awning in the front. Inside you’ll find a bar, a few tables, and most likely a line of people waiting. The interior is decorated with old 1950’s Japanese posters and ads.

Really good ramen here.. although, I personally didn’t see it as a Ramen shop. (I only saw two kind of ramen there when I went.. I might have not seen the menu right) but I remember my friend and I were looking through the menu and thinking for a ramen shop they don’t have much of a selection of ramen.

However, besides the quantity of ramen types, the quality of the ramen I had was very good. I normally don’t drink the soup, but I kept drinking it even after being done with the noodles! Now.. if they only had some A/C…

Now, you walk into Daikokuya and you KNOW you’re in a ramen house. They’ve captured the ambience pretty well, all the way down to the temperature. I went on a Sunday afternoon at about 4pm, thinking that it was a good time to miss both the lunch and dinner crowds. Probably true, but there was still a wait of about 15 minutes. We put down either table or counter so my party of 2 sat at the counter, which I think added to my first Daikokuya experience.

I really like the menu and how you really have no choices about what ramen to order. Sometimes, too many choices (like Shinsengumi – ugh the one in Rosemead was awful!) takes away from your experience, and it’s nice to just have your decision made for you.

I ordered a bowl ramen and Dave ordered the ramen and eel rice combo. We also got the fried spicy tuna appetizer, which was kind of pricey but definitely tasty (I really liked the leaf that they wrapped the spicy tuna in – I don’t know what it’s called but it comes with your spring rolls at pho restaurants). Since we sat at the counter, we got to watch them prepare all the food, which was fun.

The broth, which is not clear like normal shoyu ramen but murky (which must mean there’s a little miso in it… I think?), was very tasty. The chasiu they use is pork belly I believe, so it was very fatty and lacked the heavy pork taste that the Orochon chasiu had. I thought it might have been a little too fatty, but I really liked the flavor. I also appreciated how all the essentials (bean sprouts, green onions, bamboo shoots, roasted egg, chasiu) came with the standard bowl of ramen, rather than having to add any of those things separately like at some places. The only thing that took away from my otherwise perfect bowl of noodles was that I thought they overdid it with the green onions, so much that the onion flavor overpowered the pork flavor of the broth. Other than that, it was quite possibly the perfect bowl of ramen, with perfectly cooked noodles (just enough chewiness) and a very flavorful broth (which was the perfect temperature too). Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the eel rice was very good also.

I was expecting a lot when I finally tried Daikokuya, because everyone talks about this place. Because of its reputation, I would give it 4.5 stars rather than 5 if I could, because of the overabundance of green onion. However, I’ll round up on this one, because it’s not very often I leave a restaurant as satisfied as I was that day.

Don’t let the lines intimidate you, this place is worth the wait! Hakata-style ramen – great prices, excellent food.

best ramen in LA. the kurobuta pork they put in it is awesome ..

I was there for lunch Saturday, 4/18/09. It was 85 degrees in downtown LA. Daikokuya does not have AC. The place was hot and crowded. Mostly young adults in their 20s. Some were from the USC Med Center. It said so on their scrubs. I sat at the counter and watched them cook. They had a bunch of small strainers filled with pre-measured amounts of noodles that they hung over the sides of a boiliing pot of water when the order came in. There was also a timer. The amount of noodles was about enough to fill an 8 oz cup. Not much in my opinion. see the rest of the review below.