TBA
Sawtelle
Went back to Tatsu Ramen on Sawtelle for the first time in waaaaay too damned long. After this visit, still can't figure out why they're so popular. Showed up just before 5:00pm and had my order in before 5:00pm, then proceeded to wait 30 minutes for food at a restaurant that only had three other groups of people seated. Not only that, a group who came in a few minutes after I did got their food a minute or two before I did?
Very perplexing how they can be this slow. At least their ramen has gotten better-- their "Bold Ramen" is a tonkotsu-hybrid broth with shellfish as well (not sure why they call it tonkotsu, but I guess explaining it otherwise takes too long) that hearkens back to a few years ago when ramen broths in Los Angeles all got crazy intense. Customer-selectable levels of garlic and whatnot definitely mean it's bold flavored, especially with the fried onion strips they seem to love, and the noodles are thin straight noodles much like Tsujita or Shin Sen Gumi. Char shu is pretty good, pan fried finish with actual texture and flavor as opposed to the flavorless, falling-apart that some places like.
Honestly, not bad at all if you like intense flavors for your ramen.... well except for the slow kitchen. That I still can't wrap my brain around.
After indulging at Tatsu, decided to walk around a bit more and randomly stumbled upon Teaspoon, one of the newest milk tea shops on Sawtelle. They're just outside of the main dining area in a large and modern space, with a very, very fast kitchen (my taro milk with boba was ready less than a minute after I ordered!). Ordered 25% sweet, which, with boba, still might have been too much? It was pretty solid but next time I may need to try either no boba, or 0% sweet with boba.