Ramen Nagi
Ramen Nagi, the big hit from the Bay Area opens a new location at the popular Century City mall in Los Angeles.
Original King Ramen
Ratings
Broth
Noodles
Chashu
Kakuni
Egg
Toppings
Overall
Date of Visit: February 2022
What I Ordered: Original King, level 1 spicy, firm thick noodles, with chashu, kakuni, and egg.
Cost: $13.50 + $1.75 egg + $2.25 chashu
Offers Extra Noodles: $2.00 (thin only)
Offers Extra Broth: No
Review
Ramen Nagi, a much anticipated ramen joint, opened a few months ago at Century City. Ever since, they have had a massive line out the door. In order to get a seat, you are required to wait in line in person — no online check-in, no waitlist, just a good old fashion waiting in line system.
The inside is brightly lit with many tables in addition to about four seats at a bar in front of the kitchen. The layout is an open kitchen where you can see the noodles cooking and the bowls being assembled. Do note that there is no bathroom in this restaurant, only the one around the corner outside.
Nagi offers many different types of classic Tonkotsu bowls including an original, red oil, black garlic oil, and more. They let you chose the intensity of your salt, oil, garlic, and toppings.
For my first visit, I am going to go with most of the recommended items, only making an alteration to my noodle choice: firm thick noodles. I am adding an egg to my bowl because the base bowl does not come with one. I am also ordering both styles of pork to try them both.
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The broth is super flavorful, and has good richness. The style is very familiar, as this is the type of broth that is milky in appearance, with notable larger white flecks floating around. To me, this had a familiar taste to other broths prepared in this style. The broth is served with good temperature, and a good amount of oil floating on top to coat the mouth with flavor. There is a notable saltiness, yet it is not overwhelming at the beginning. We will see how it is at the end.
The saltiness did not built to become overbearing after finishing the bowl. The level 1 spice added no detectable flavor, but did have enough of an effect to leave a tingle on the lips. But that was all for me. For a spicier bowl, perhaps order the red king.
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The noodles are yellowish in color and are the common firm thick noodles. These noodles can provide great texture and also a lot of good noodle flavor. I love the firmness of the noodle, as you can control exactly how firm you want your noodles prepared. The flavor is mild, and likely will depend on the broth to carry the main flavor. The noodles are square in shape, and have very little curl with no crimp.
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Thick noodles and rich broth. Just the way I like it. This combo is excellently done. Normally with a rich Tonkotsu broth, it is paired with thin noodles to help balance the broth. I would rather have thick noodles and an even THICKER broth. While this combo is excellent, in order to really blow my mind, I would want it richer! Yeah I’m crazy, I know.
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The chashu is thinly sliced, and pinkish in color. It is not super fatty to where it melts in your mouth, but still has good chew. It is on the lighter and sweeter side in flavor. There is not much dryness to it either. Overall, the flavor is mellow, and texture is decent.
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Is this a solid block of pork belly heavily marinated in flavor, ready to deliver a flavor packed punch? Oh yeah. I love kakuni. Their kakuni is a solid block of pork belly and is soft in texture. It easily gives to the bite allowing the fatty parts to melt in your mouth, leaving the meaty half to chew on. Along with the sweet soy glaze, there is also a sharper taste that reminds me of mirin or rice wine. In my opinion, this is distracting from the sweetness and savory pork flavor. However, they do a great job with the texture which can make up for the distraction.
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The egg is not normally included in the bowl, and when ordered on the side, it is served as a whole uncut egg. The white is light brown on the inside while the inside yolk still has the texture of a pudding, but the edges of the yolk have started to solidify. You can notice that this egg is over cooked ever so slightly. As a result, it misses out on that silky pudding like texture experience, and has some dryness from the cooked yolk. The flavor is decent, with some sweetness from the marinade, while also maintaining a good egg flavor.
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The toppings are simple in this bowl. Green onions and mushrooms. Any additional toppings are extra. This is great if you don’t need any toppings, but worse if you like loading up your bowl with all of the toppings, as stacking on all of the toppings would get very expensive. The green onions are subtle, and the mushrooms are thinly cut and tasty. The portion is small so they don’t get in the way so that you can eat them when you want them.
Overall: 8/10
Would recommend. The best part about Ramen Nagi is the ability to dial in exactly how you want your bowl. Start with the chefs recommendations and you can decide if you want something with more or less salt, oil, or garlic. But what I enjoyed is changing the firmness of the noodles to thick firm noodles. I often prefer thick noodles over thin noodles. The broth is well done, a traditional style Tonkotsu broth. Not overly rich, with good warm flavor and great texture. I do wish it was a bit more potent in flavor to back up the thick noodles. I think the broth would be fine with thin noodles. But even with thin noodles, I would opt for firm or extra firm thin noodles only. In regards to the other ingredients, they just barely missed the mark of excellence. The egg was slightly over cooked, missing the desired texture. The kakuni had too strong of a mirin wine taste in my opinion, making it sharper than it was sweet. The chashu was lacking in flavor, and was just seeming pale. The toppings are minimal, and adding more if desired would be costly.
There are a few things to note about this restaurant. First is that they really try to make their turnover time as fast as possible. This is great when you are waiting in line to get a seat, but this isn’t a place that you’d be hanging around for a while grabbing drinks with a large party. In fact, they don’t even serve alcohol drinks! While they might be losing out on the people purchasing marked up drinks, they might be able to make up for it with a faster turnover time. They hand you the menu to fill out while you are standing in line, and they also drop the check while you are half way through your meal to pay at the counter on the way out.
One other consideration is that because you have to wait in line in person, you are literally burning your parking meter time. Parking is not cheap here, and whereas other restaurants you can put your name on a wait list, here you are required to wait in line, so you can’t multitask and shop while you wait.
It is nice that they provide pitchers of water on the table. This is great to counter the saltiness of the soup without relying on the busy waiters to refill your water. Also great for me who guzzles water. But what is not great is that there is no bathroom inside the restaurant. The closest bathroom is outside around the corner.
Overall a great experiencing, getting an excellent score in two of the trinity, the broth and noodles. However, be mindful of the other considerations I have mentioned.
Restaurant Info
Address
10250 Santa Monica Blvd Ste. #2850, Los Angeles, CA 90067
Website
ramennagiusa.com
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