#5 Chasu ramen at Katana-Ya

Um, so this is embarrassing. I thought I took big gaps in updating my other blog, but this really takes the cake. I bet some of you thought that I had abandoned this particular project! (Not the eating out, of course, but rather the writing up of those delicious meals.) Since I've updated this blog, which has been MONTHS, they've even come out with a new list. It is suspiciously similar to the old list. Since I've already started with the numbers from the old list, I'll stick with that whenever I can.

B and I have eaten at several places from the list in the past few months, so I'll try to remember all of them. Most recently, last week we tried the ramen at Katana-Ya, a hole in the wall in the Civic Center/TL district. They're open way past my bedtime (1AM!), but we went at 7:30, a more civilized time to eat dinner. We were accompanied, as we frequently are to new restaurants on the list, by A&K and D&R. However, after having our name on the list for over thirty minutes, we were offered the choice of being broken up into two tables. The hostess couldn't tell us how long it would be for us to wait to be seated together, so D&R went to one table, and the rest of us to another.

We started with great gyoza (though the spicy sauce overwhelmed the filling) and a decent spider roll, though nothing to write home about. And then, on to the ramen! I must point out that A&K are ramen snobs. On their honeymoon last year, they went to Japan, and even what has been dubbed "the best ramen in San Francisco" apparently has nothing on the ramen from Tokyo. K got the "salty" broth, which he was disappointed by, and A got the "salty/spicy" broth, which she thought was reasonably good. They were both disappointed by the noodles. My miso broth was, I thought, better than either of theirs, and B liked his shoyu.

However, in terms of my Asian noodle soups, I really prefer pho. Why oh why is there no pho on the list? A question for next year's list, I suppose. In the meantime, if you're willing to wait a while, and you're interested in trying the best ramen in San Francisco, head to Katana-Ya.