Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Los Angeles - Daikokuya

I like love unagi.

But urrr.



That's the most unagi I've ever seen in one serve of una-don EVER.

Let me back track a bit.

David's friend wanted to eat at Daikokuya in Los Angeles. So a 30 minute drive from Orange County later, we find ourselves in Little Tokyo (which is just adorable), with our names scribbled on a...wait list? What is this concept? Wait, we're number 19?! HOW LONG DO WE HAVE TO WAIT?





Well.

One hour later.





We find 4 of us squeezed into a booth and 2 of our party sitting at the ramen bar.



The place is absolutely packed to the brim, people constantly shuffling in and out and a happy bustling hum reverberates around the room. It's small and cosy, with friendly and courteous Japanese waiters and waitresses, even in the all the craziness, trying to make you as comfortable as possible.



I decided to try the California roll (Being in California and all...), nothing overly exciting unfortunately.







However, the lack lustre roll can be forgiven, since the star of the restaurant is their Daikokuya ramen. With pork belly char siew, the all necessary boiled egg, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts and green onions, the noodles were of perfect texture, although I will honestly say I was a little bit underwhelmed by the broth...however, I'm no ramen expert myself, so I may not be the most reliable source for ramen feedback!



So yes. Back to my una-don instead. Which was HUGE. Two giant slabs of unagi, almost the size of my hand, lazily flopped over a bowl of rice. Rich and saucy, but a little bit bony unfortunately...

As Brad tends to say, it is kind of hard to get Japanese food wrong, and whilst there was nothing at all wrong with the food at Daikokuya, and I did like it, I found it a little bit over-hyped. I can't imagine myself spending one and a half hours commuting and waiting to eat there again.

Maybe if the line was a bit shorter.

Daikokuya
327 E 1st St
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Daikokuya on Urbanspoon



1 comment:

  1. Hiiiiiiii, I am Ja :D

    that Unagi looks amazing ! I love Unagi ><

    ReplyDelete