Aloha! Ramen!

I'm so excited that two new noodle places have opened up walking distance to me. Yippee! The closer of the two is called Aloha Ramen and we stopped in last night on the way home from a Summer Solstice nip at Naked City (lagerfest!).

The restaurant is tiny - probably about 6 two-tops and a counter that seats four. Decor was very bare and they were blasting Hawaiian music so the place had a bit of an odd feel. Anyway, we sat down and quickly scanned the very small menu - it only lists 3 types of ramen (Shio, Miso and Shoyu), homemade gyoza and garlic fried rice! Not much choice, but enough for us! Scott ordered the Shoyu while I went with Miso. A few minutes later, out came steaming ginormous bowls of noodles, topped with a few slices of pork, corn kernels, fish cakes and bean sprouts. Scott slurped his up in no time and couldn't stop raving about the noodles. Me, I liked them too, but I still have to say Daikokuya in LA is the one to beat. Aloha Ramen's were good though - noodles were toothy, broth wasn't overly salty and the pork was tender tender. I think I liked the Shoyu flavor better than Miso. All in all, a nice addition to our neighborhood! I was sad though that we were one of 3 tables at 7pm, so I hope their business picks up soon. I would hate to lose them! Summer doesn't usually scream for soup noodles but once it turns fall, I'm sure we'll be heading back.

We did walk by the other noodle joint - New Noodle - and checked out the menu. It consisted of mostly Thai and Vietnamese dishes. I'm going to wait for the weather to cool down a bit and then try out their Tom Yum Noodle Soup!