Gardena Ramen – 3.5/5 Negi

Gardena Ramen is the ramen equivalent of the girl next door. No, not the one that’s actually a porn star trying to hide from her storied past.

The other one – the girl who’s good-looking and has a great personality. People generally wouldn’t call this girl “hot” or “a perfect 10,” but they certainly won’t call her “average” or “plain-Jane.”

Gardena Ramen is a solid ramen shop that is above-average. But the ramen certainly won’t win any top awards. For those of you who have had the pleasure of living in Japan, Gardena Ramen is that solid neighborhood ramen shop or kaiten-zushi or yakitori-ya that you would stop by after getting off the train from a hard day’s work. (Umm, okay… so, teaching English wasn’t that hard…)


It was a Saturday and I heard the place would get crowded at nights. For those of you who know me, I absolutely HATE crowds. I’m like Sean Connery in Finding Forrester, when the kid takes Sean to a Knicks game.

So, what do I end up doing? I end up being the first one there when the place opens up for dinner at 5:00 p.m.

Quick tangent: The extent of my ramen knowledge comes from two sources: (1) visiting countless ramen shops during my two years in Japan, and (2) the movie Tampopo.

Remember one of the first things Goro and Gun (played by a very young Ken Watanabe!) say when they walk into Lai-Lai? They quip about how the water isn’t boiling, an obvious indicator as to how the ramen will taste.

Seeing as how I basically got to Gardena Ramen at 5pm, I don’t think the owners were expecting customers for at least another thirty minutes. I wonder if me popping my head through their doors caused them to think one of two things: (1) Woah, this might be the start of a prosperous night!, or (2) Ugh, can’t we get some peace around here?!

["This job would be great if it wasn't for all the fucking customers."]

Regardless, the kitchen was partially shielded, so I couldn’t tell if the water for the men (noodles) was boiling or not.

After sitting down in Gardena Ramen for about thirty seconds, I immediately asked myself the following question:

If you owned a ramen shop, how would you decorate the interior?

Is it just me or did Gardena Ramen get their chairs and tables from a coffee shop?

Hey, don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong with having plain digs in a ramen shop. I don’t go to ramen shops to impress clients and woo ladies. I’m there for one thing – the pursuit of excellent ramen. In fact, I almost think that a ramen shop that pays too much attention to its décor is not going to pay the same kind of attention to its soup stock. I’m waiting for a place to prove me wrong. (No, Chabu-ya [review coming soon!] wasn’t that great…)

As for the ramen at Gardena Ramen – solid, but nothing spectacular. Like I said, it’s the girl next door. The broth was clean, packing an above-average amount of flavor, but yet lacking that extra zing which brings it up another class or two. The men was average, just as you’d expect from a decent ramen shop. Overall, the ramen was pretty good – on a scale of bad/okay/not bad/pretty good/great/unbelievable.

There really isn’t much else to say about Gardena Ramen, except for my final test. I always like to judge ramen shops by the following test: If I had to wait up to an hour to eat at this place, how would I feel once I finished the ramen? Truthfully, if I had to wait more than 15 minutes for the ramen here at Gardena Ramen, I’d be pretty damn pissed off.

The ramen is pretty good – it’s not great and it’s certainly not unbelievable. That’s why this would be the perfect neighborhood restaurant, since you could come home from work, see that it’s not crowded, sit down and enjoy a nice dinner to cap off the night.

On a side note, can someone tell Gardena Ramen to change the picture on their website?

The last thing I want to see when I’m eating ramen is the broth containing meat slowly cooking in a dirty pot. Look, I know it's all going in my belly. But it’s kind of like not asking how they make McDonald’s chicken mcnuggets.

I simply don’t want to know certain things.

And can you imagine if you were a newcomer to ramen and you saw that picture on Gardena Ramen’s website? You’d probably think they were boiling chili. Or worse.

Much love till my next post.

Gardena Ramen
Address: 1840 W. 182nd St., Torrance, CA 90504
Google Maps: Link
Shōyu Ramen: $6.50