Ramenya - Japanese noodle shop in West L.A.

I love ramen, pretty much in all forms. I like bagged ramen, and I even like cup-a-noodles ramen (though they all have to be brands I like - all brands are definitely not created equal), but I especially like restaurant ramen because I just can't seem to get the same flavor at home.

Sawtelle Blvd. in West Los Angeles has a plethora of ramen restaurants, but there are also other locations nearby. Ramenya is one of them. It's located on Olympic Blvd., a couple blocks west of Sawtelle, past the big law firm buildings and just after the Frames 2000 store. It's just a tiny little place, so it's easy to miss. Even easier to miss is the even tinier parking lot just after the restaurant. There are maybe 10 spaces, and they're delegated to a couple different establishments, but once the other stores close, all 10 can be used by Ramenya patrons. But that's still only 10 spaces. I lucked out today by finding an open spot on Olympic just after the parking lot. But there have been other times when I've ended up going elsewhere because I've driven around and completely failed to find somewhere to legally park my car.

The restaurant itself is fairly small. There's a counter that seats 4 and that they generally use for single-person parties. There are a couple of 4-person tables and then the rest (meaning another maybe 8 or 10 tables) are 2-person tables. Did I mention the restaurant is really small? They have a pretty decent menu with lots of variations of ramen and rice to choose from. For dinner, I picked the chasu ramen, and I added seaweed and egg. It's a very generous serving of ramen, and with this dish, lots of pork, and it also comes with bean sprouts. The seaweed (which I love) was also plentiful, and the egg was hard-boiled then cut in half. The seaweed was an extra $1.00 and the egg was an extra $.50 - not bad. The chasu ramen is soy sauce based, which is what I prefer. While I love miso soup, I find miso-based ramen broth to be too heavy and creamy, whereas the soy sauce is tasty but much lighter and clear. The broth was very tasty indeed, and it was a great dinner all around.

The restaurant is usually quite busy, and there can often be a wait, but it's not usually too long a wait because of the quick turnover. They make and bring out dishes very quickly, which contributes to diners taking less time. The wait beings are all very friendly, and they're extremely busy the whole time. They also seem to do a brisk take-out business, with lots of calls coming in during the time I was there. That's one solution to the parking and table problems.

Other than cautions about the parking problem and the limited table space, this is a place I'd definitely recommend.


Ramenya
Japanese noodle shop
11555 W. Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90064
310-575-9337
open 11:30am - 9:30pm

Click here for their website.