Rutsu18 - described in a recent LA times article as the hippest of the four ramen shops on a 2 mile stretch of main in alhambra, has closed somewhat unexpectedly and been replaced by a branch of kopan ramen which specializes in tonkotsu. pity - i thought that the $8 lunch special including ramen and a small don featuring spicy tuna or salmon or a poke was a great value, i’ll also miss the picked soy garlic cloves,
i suppose the pics are moot, but i was there about a month ago:
it supposedly stands for ko(rea) and (ja)pan, but is korean owned
I feel there’s something off about the food, i’m not a fan.
broth is… ok… fatty but a bit generic. scallions cut so long they’ll just get stuck in your teeth. chashu still had the top of the skin part on it… made it unnecessarily chewy… and not really tender.
Same issue with chashu rice bowl… still had the chewy skin (you can see it better here) and not diced. It’s not easy to eat, not tender enough to break with the spoon, etc etc…
from their website
“Kopan Ramen is a Japanese traditional hot noodle specified as a Tonkotsu (豚骨, “pork bone”) Ramen”
FWIW, the owner of rutsu was korean as well, no?
actually i would categorize that as pork belly vs. chashu which is typically flavored differently and made from other cuts of the pig. i love pork belly, so i’d probably be more forgiving of the unwelcome texture contrast.
that egg looks nasty and very amateurish. i couldn’t bring myself to return to a place that served an egg that looked like that - unless it was REALLY tasty or if they did something like benten ramen by injecting a sauce into the yolk.
She was, yes, but she was supposedly related to someone in yukino-ya in arcadia either she’s married to the owner or her bro works there… or both? During the beginning few months of rutsu, i spoke with her a few times since i recognized her as the waitress from yukino-ya. She eventually added most of the ramen that yukino-ya had, and stopped showing up as manager.
That may be true! Except that other places make it without this texture.
The term i’d use to describe the egg is… generic… but not horribly done.
