Yamadaya gives good food with fast service. Do you love pork? Then this small ramen shop just North of the 405 on Crenshaw in Torrance will have you in pork eater's heaven.
When you think ramen noodles, if you just think about instant, you need an education. At Yamadaya, they give you choices. You can have either thin noodles or thick. Then you must choose from three broth flavors: tonkotsu, tonkotsu kotteri, tonkotsu shoyu. All three are tonkotsu style. What is tonkotsu? Tonkotsu is rich pork-flavored broth, so thick that you might think the broth has cream or milk in it. Kotteri uses Yamadaya’s special black garlic oil. Tonkotsu shoyu style is a Tokyo-style soy sauce-flavored ramen with black sesame paste and nori.
Overall the ramen is great. The eggs are not completely hard boiled, with the yolk just a little soft in the middle. We call it perfection. If you have a dish with nori (dried seaweed), use it like a spice: Take a small bit of it with your ramen to add a sea salt flavor to it.
The tonkotsu kotteri ramen with chashu ($10.45) is a good place to start. You can also try the kakuni ramen ($10.95) which has two slices of pork belly. Ian feels the best slices of pork come from the belly. Each large piece is perfectly balanced between lean and fat meat. Yes, fat. You have to like fat to appreciate Asian pork.
Paigu ramen ($10.95) is a side of deep fried pork loin. The batter is crispier than their tonkatsu. Not as fatty as other pork dishes, it still has full rich porky flavor.
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| Tsukumen |
The tsuku men ($9.95) gives you hot and cold: cold noodles with a side of hot fish-flavored broth. The fish flavor is light and the broth includes small chunks of pork.
Then there's tonkatsu ($5.95) which for us is one of the better tonkatsu around; the tonkatsu is neither greasy nor oily. Notice this is tonkAtsu and not tonkOtsu.
For a few dollars more you can make any ramen dish a combo. That gives you a choice of either four piece gyoza or karaage and a choice of chashu bowl, kim chee fried rice, or a curry bowl. The gyoza is cooked so that the outside is nice and crispy with the top steamed. The stuffing, however, is outclassed by the ramen. The karaage is fried dark meat chicken that isn't too greasy. The chashu bowl has a generous portion of their tasty pork over rice. Sure it's a simple dish but when done this well, it is a real winner. As for the kim chee fried rice, the kim chee could have been cut smaller but the result was good.
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| Kimchee rice. |
Like many smaller Asian restaurants, Yamadaya is cash only. While some of the dishes are a little bit pricier than others the shop is student-friendly. Show a student ID and get either free extra noodles (normally $1.45) or a bowl of white rice. You can also request garlic with a garlic press for free if you find your ramen needing a little more punch and you aren't going to do a face-to-face with a non-garlic eating friend anytime soon.
- 3118 W 182nd St
- Torrance, CA 90504
- Neighborhood: Torrance
- (310) 380-5555
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