Santa #6 - 2006.06.13 -- ***** (but i hate this place)

Ramen is bad for you. It is empty carbs drenched in a bowl of fat loaded with salt. Ramen at Santa, is especially bad for you, because it comes extra with high stress and a guaranteed 2 hour blank-out of your life. On this day is my 6th visit, approximately, to this San Mateo mecca of japanese ramen. But to be precise, this wasn't really a meal because I didn't get to eat there; I didn't even get to go in. No, its not even that I couldn't wait the requisite two hours for a bowl of noodle; its because they weren't open on Tuesday.

Sure, I can blame it on myself for not checking properly their hours of operation. I could blame my cousin for setting her flight on a tuesday. But I've been burned at Santa so many times I could conclude nothing except its another conspiracy played on me by them. I've came and put my name down, went for a tour around downtown, and came back and waited another 45 to get in the door, then another 30 for the food to show up. I've came back after two and half hours to have them run out of soup and shut us out. I have stood out of that tiny shop gritting my teeth watching the waitresses and kitchen staff leisurely go about their snail work oblivious to the throngs of hungry beasts outside. Everytime, I have said to myself this is the last time I will suffer this kind of insanity.

But like all the other suckers that undertake the same grueling pilgrimage, I come crawling back every time.

They have the usual fried chicken on the menu, which is better than Maruichi's but I have to say not as good as Ryowa's. Three broths, each with around 6 configurations, side of extra noodle, egg, kimchee, or stewed pork. Good chewy noodles, generous accoutrements in each bowl (differs depending on what you get), and of course the Godly broths. Soy sauce with napa cabbage comes with lots of the yummy bamboo shoots, and the characteristic little dots of pork fat swimming all around the broth. Soy bean kimchee balances the spicy vegetable with the strong soy bean flavor of the soup. Pork broth is my favorite, ultra creamy, ultra rich, ultra meaty. The "extra hot" pork noodles cozy up closely to the taste of soy bean kimchee. Pork soup stewed pork? Don't even dream of it if you go there for dinner. But if you happen to drop by at 2 in the afternoon, get yourself a bowl of this "ultimate ramen" and bite the shit out of that sweet, tender, succulent pork.

$7-10 per bowl.