Genkotsu

Friday, 10:30PM.
Catching up with an old friend in the area. I was crashing with some folks near Little Tokyo, so I preferred venue within walking distance.
Quickie:
+Nice hostess
+Spacious establishment
And then?
Friendly atmosphere. I saw the staff taking shots with some of the patrons! Place is good for those in a late night jam with last minute plans.
**********
Stuffed my face in:
1. Prawn gyoza
*It was literally just the prawn with dough around it, tail sticking out and
everything
— A bit too greasy for me

Smoke and ramen do not mix well.
Food: The ramen itself is not half bad. I scarfed down on some delicious Queen ramen (
) which had tons of fixings like pork slices, bamboo, sprouts, a soy sauce egg, and green onions. The broth at this place comes out on the oily side, but I really enjoyed it. My boo pigged out on the spicy ramen with thin curly noodles (
). I sampled it and twas delish and spicy as advertised. Yes, you can choose whether your noodles are thin, fat, curly, or straight. I don’t think they give you many options with the broth, but why mess with a good thing?
Atmosphere: So here’s the downfall. It’s pretty gross in here. We ate dinner a bit late (this place has insanely late hours) and were the only people in the restaurant save a couple of Japanese (?) people at a nearby table and they were totally smoking inside! Last time I checked that was illegal. How can you enjoy your food when your nostrils are filled with carcinogens? Also, everything in here is sort of run down and looks like it came from the late 80s. On the other hand, they do have karaōke some nights. I didn’t get to see any action because I came when the KJ wasn’t there.
Service: Kind of gruff at first but then quite nice. Maybe there is a language barrier.
Synopsis: Good ramen if you can tolerate the smoke which may or may not be there.

I’ve ended up here twice now and I can’t help but gush about their pork rice thingy (I’ve also had a taste of someone else’s spicy ramen and it was delicious, but then again, it was 2ish am). If I found out its ingredients I’d probably find it less appealing, but it really is the perfect cap to an evening (open until 3am). The service is funny, but in a good way.
Warning: Drunk karaōke is not cute.

Ramen is a lot like many other things in life in that it is hardly ever a «one size fits all» proposition. So not having the option to choose my level of soup base, oil or firmness of noodle… I did my best to order the one ramen choice on the menu that most closely resembled my FAVE ramen place (Hakata ramen ShinSenGumi in Rosemead).
Although I can’t say I was completely disappointed, I definitely won’t be giving Genkotsu another go. Foremost, it was too oily for my taste without sufficient flavor in the pork based broth to warrant the oiliness in the first place (if that makes sense).
The service was just OK. One tiny perk: personally, I found the layout and décor to be interesting (in a good way). But, sadly, tis not enough to bring this ramen-​lover back.

I got the pork chashu ramen, it was basic and delicious. The wait staff is SUPER nice and very helpful and accommodating. If yuo don’t want to wait across the street at Daikokuya for hours, this is the place to go instead.

3.5 stars (rounded up for the friendly couple who ran the place and the good service)
I took a chance after seeing the line out of Daikokuya and was glad I found this place. I had the 4-​dish combo (Queen’s something…) that included a
— half-​sized ramen,
— two gyoza (dumplings)
— mixed green salad, and
— choice of a rice bowl.
I chose the Miso Ramen with the standard thin, curly noodles and the kurobuta rice bowl, all for about $ 10.
Ramen was tasty, especially with the addition of corn and even the half-​ramen came with two slices of pork (as opposed to the other place). The rice bowl was delicious and I would go back again just for that. The salad was also good, although it had an interesting dressing that I’d never seen before. Gyoza was smaller than I expected but also okay.
When I went, it was late and the place was about a ¼ full, with mostly Japanese customers (good sign?) and a live band. A few people went up for karaōke which was entertaining and overall it was a good experience.
For those of you who came at the grand opening, which sounded kind of hectic, I’d give this place another shot…

with daikokuya across the street, genkotsu will have a difficult time staying in business.
came in here since i wanted to catch the uruguay vs netherlands world cup match and figured i might as well give it a try since its new.
décor:
red velvet velor seats with neon lights and a center stage make this place look like a rundown vegas strip club. walked in to some justin timberlake playing and ate my ramen with taylor swift, usher, and kanye. most random array of songs.
food:
ordered the miso ramen (#4) expecting your typical miso ramen broth. when it came out, the broth was brown-​red and tasted like nothing ive had before. not a good thing. the only plus about the ramen was the three pieces of chashu.
service was great, but like i said, with daiko across the street and the world cup ending, i doubt ill ever be back here. dont let curiosity steer you here.

3 ½ stars
Saw this place advertised on thrillist, decided to go check it out. To my surprise this used to be a place called «Neptune’s lounge» back in the day where I’d sing karaōke with my japanese friends on their huge stage.
Came here and was, oh it’s a ramen shop now? Still got the rainbow neon lights outside, the weird roundabout bar right in front and large pink couches ive nearly passed out on from a night of heavy drinking.
So the food, it’s ok. Ramen is above average, good choice, standard bento box dinner/​lunches with your rice miso and tempura. Nothing I havent seen before.
The space itself it huge! Large industrial-​like ceilings, exposed brixk walls, why didnt they rennovate this place? Mad potential to be a cool hipster place if it wasn’t for it’s weird retro décor inside leftover from Neptune.
The one thing I have to say is if you’re here please visit their restrooms. My god, the best creepiest halo lighting ive ever seen. If anything you gotta check it out, best part of the whole restaurant. That too was leftover from Neptune.
All in all a decent lunch, but with so many choices in little tokyo it’s hard to sell what’s so great about this place. I’d definitely come back for a few more rounds of drunken karaōke but food wise I think i’ll stick to my usual Suehiro or Daikokuya across the street.

where do i start?! This restaurant has a wide variety of traditional japanese foods. From gyoza to rice dished to ramen to house salads.
There are many options to ordering ramen. For noodles you can choose between thick/​curly, thick/​straight, thin/​curly, and thin/​straight which is pretty unique, i must say. there are also different soup base flavors available. pork, vegetable, spicy, etc…
the staff members were very welcoming and warm! they were also very prompt with our drink orders as well as food.
overall, i give this restaurant five stars! this is definitley a place you eat with friends, family, or a hot date[;

Went to this place to grub up and get some food in me in case we needed to battle any potential rioters err I mean Lakers fans on our way home after a concert in Little Tokyo.
Long and short of it is the ramen isn’t bad. You get to pick four different kinds of noodles (thick/​thin/​curvy/​straight) and they have a couple of different salt based broths including a spicy one. They also have different kinds of gyoza as well. Other than that, it looked like they had a couple of rice dishes but they’re forte is ramen. It’s no Daikokokya but much better than Mr. Ramen or Koraku’s ramen.
They also have karaōke with a lot of new American songs. But beware they charge per song so if you find the staff cheering you on like you’re the next American Idol– more likely than not they’re cheering on the cha-​ching and not your singing ability unless of course you’re the next Adam Lambert.

My wife and I were fortunate to find this great restaurant after the Dodgers vs Angels (Dodger Stadium) on June 13, 2010.
If you really like the authentic «Japanese Ramen», I would strongly recommend this restaurant as there are many «Wanna-​be» Ramen Restaurants in Los Angeles. Especially the tonkotsu (pork-​soup based ramen) was excellent!!!
We also had Tonkatsu (deep-​fried pork cutlet) and it was very good as well!!! The meat was very tender and the panko (breadcrumbs) was very crispy.
Next time, we hope to try the hand-​made Gyoza (Regrettably, we were too full to order Gyozas!!!). As practically all restaurants nowadays use frozen machine-​made gyozas, I definitely like to try those soon!!!
The restaurant layout is unique, as there is a bar counter in-​front and there is a stage in the back. Also, there are several large TV screen in which you may watch any of Dodgers or Lakers games (It seems to me that this is first Japanese Ramen Restaurant with the atmosphere of a sport-​bar!!!); however, it is also casual enough that the family with children will be also able to enjoy a great meal here!!!
Lastly, the waiter/​waitress and chiefs were very friendly with great SMILES!!! I hope that you guys will keep-​up the great service as I definitely will be visiting you soon!!!

Stopped in a few times now for food after late nights in Little Tokyo. This place used to be strictly a karaōke /​bar, hence the weird layout. While the bar is still there and they still do karaōke, they opened a restaurant and renamed the place. While I suppose not everyone will enjoy the atmosphere, I find 3 things to like about this place:
1.) The hand-​made gyoza is great. The King Gyoza is my favorite, while the shrimp is pretty good as well. Tasty, moist, not too greasy; just great. This is my main dish if I eat here. Awesome.
2.) The ramen is, I find, pretty good. Daikokuya is impossible to eat at without waiting for an hour. The quality at Oroochon has dropped considerably since they blew up because of the Daikokuya waits. For ramen, Genkotsu is the best alternative to Daikokuya in Little Tokyo, and they have a style all there own. You can choose different types of noodles and broth, spicy or non-​spicy. I enjoyed the spicy with thin, straight noodles. I like spicy stuff, and it was just the right amount, broth was tasty and not watery, noodles were cooked thoroughly but not too soft. Would definitely order again.
3.) Probably the best thing about this place, imo, is the the draft beer selection. For a traditional Japanese spot like this, They have a pretty good selection: Asahi ($ 4.50), Sapporo ($ 3.50), Fat Tire ($ 5.50), Newcastle (($ 5.50), and Stella ($ 5.50). They also have the usual domestics and some imports (Corona, Heineken, etc) in bottles. While beer connoisseur will not doubt point to Far Bar as the spot for the ultimate selection, if you want to just chill with a good pint, some qyoza, and check out the highlights on ESPN at 1AM without a DJ blasting head exploding bass in your ears, this is a nice little spot. It’s a full bar also, so you can get your Patron and gyoza on at the same time if you so wish.
For me, the gyoza (love it), beer and mellow atmosphere make this place a chill spot to grub down while bar hopping, and the ramen is good if I’m really hungry. The lady, Yoshiko, that works the bar is awesome too.

Underrated!
Admittedly, the layout is weird. It’s not really the layout as the combo of layout and décor. It’s like they threw whatever furni they had together so they could level up quicker. The layout by itself is actually interesting. I love the random TV’s showing things like baseball and the Food Network.
The ramen was good though! I got the king ramen with thick noodles and if you just want ramen this is way better than waiting an hour outside of that other place across the street ;) The place across the street has been hit or miss with their taste.
My favorite part though is that it had actual Japanese people as customers.

I remember hearing about this place opening up. I missed out on the grand opening, but bookmarked it for a visit since its close to work. You’d think its pretty ballsy to open a ramen spot right in the middle of Little Tokyo. You better bring your A game to be a success in this little nook of LA.
I remember I recently participated in a co-​ed softball game. I haven’t played for YEARS. When it was my turn to bat I had visions of clearing the fence or at least running out a triple. I stepped up to the box and waited for the pitch.
I’ve never whiffed the ball so badly. I struck out. I think I was the only idiot striking out that day. (LMAO)
Genkostu with its location and space should’ve made base, maybe hit a homerun. But instead, they completely strike out.
The ramen isn’t horrible. Its just not good.
I got the spicy #5. It didn’t do anything for me. The only real flavor I got was from the pepper. I could only image how plain it would taste without the spice. The taste of the bowl was pretty one note. It reminded me of something you can make yourself at home by sprucing up a top ramen packet. Which brings up another point… my noodles were pretty undercooked too. They weren’t al dente. They were undercooked to the point of tasting synthetic.
The actual space is really weird. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out what the problem was or what was bugging me. The furniture and décor on the spackled up brick walls (liquor distributor mirrors — LOL) reminded me of a bad bachelor pad. The piano at the far end didn’t help either. I hate knocking my people, but with the music blaring it reminded me of a bad koreatown lounge gone wrong. I was expecting some bad bottle service or something.
Speaking of which, I don’t know who made the decision to put the beer taps right in the middle of a walkway at a diagonal. It seems really odd. They do have a full bar but its clustered up on shelfs like the bad bachelor pad I just mentioned. I highly doubt they have a mixologist, let alone good bartender on staff.
I’d be hard pressed to recommend this place apart for novelty: «Yeah, check it out! See how bad it is!»
I’m actually mad at myself I didn’t go to the grand opening. I could’ve saved $ 5. DAMMIT.

After discovering that the wait to get into Daikokuya would be at least 45 minutes (wtf…it was 3:30 PM on a Saturday), we ventured across the street to Genkotsu in search of some tasty ramen. We did not achieve that objective here.
The spicy ramen broth had a totally bizarre flavor. I have no idea what it was. But it wasn’t good. At all. The chashu was all right, but that broth…
The space is totally bizarre for a ramen house, and to be honest, a little off-​putting. From the outside, it looks like your average small ramen house. Walk inside, and be transported into a neon light decorated 70s disco lounge. Next time, I’ll just suck it up and wait the hour for Daikokuyu.

I was unsure of whether or not to give this place a 1 star or 2, on the night I ate there I left pretty disappointed and would’ve given it a 1, but I decided that overall… there were some bad things that happened, but some things were okay. Not quite enough to give it a 1 star since they really did try to do their best and didn’t intentionally give us bad service. Maybe I’m too nice, but oh well, trying to see the positive side of things.
The night started out well with some good company. I was able to come here thanks to an invite from another Unilocaler, who had been invited by another Unilocaler. Haha. Namely Andrew F through Ching T! So I had a great time with them both that night and greatly buoyed up my dinner experience.
The entrance was decked out in grand opening asian restaurant style, as in big giant bouquet of flowers with a ribbon draped over. Everyone had to write their name on a name tag and endure it through dinner. Met the owner and the leader of the foodie group. Pretty cool that the group got to take over the restaurant for the grand opening.
We ended up sitting in the middle round table with a good view of everything around us. In the back was a live band with a piano and a woman singer doing her renditions of various popular songs. Bit loud for conversing though. The front of the restaurant was taken up mostly by the bar and the rest of the place was split in half by a metal railing. I spotted 4 servers for the night, all 4 were incredibly busy and it was hard to tell at first if they did indeed work there. One older man was wearing the usual asian waiter outfit, black vest over white shirt. Another man was just wearing a black t with a black apron. The two girls were wearing green aprons. So at first it was confusing… then we just started waving to whomever.
The menu itself was pretty diverse and had many options. Ramen came with 4 options for noodles, thin straight, thick straight, thin curly, thick curly. For the grand opening, they were having a 4.95 special price for the first 3 ramen listed. Haha and of course I had to take advantage of that. This was my first time having so many choices of noodles for ramen! Kinda fun!
Eventually we ordered:
Calamari-​deep fried in some strange white breading… basically just tasted a bit salty and no flavor otherwise. Turned out to be the best dish of the night.
King Gyoza-​dunno why its called King gyoza since they were so small! There was also a queen gyoza… which said small in parantheses… didn’t turn out well. Was also undercooked on the side unfried… almost like dipping the skin in hot water only.
Queen Ramen-​salt base broth with thick curly noodles. The broth itself was decent, light but with a slight flavor of pork… and salt! The soy sauce broth was richer in the king ramen. The pork was pretty tender and fatty… pretty good for me. It included 2 halves of differently cooked hard boiled eggs, and bamboo. Those were allright. The noodles were highly disappointing… undercooked and tasted doughy. Yuck. I didn’t finish the noodles. If it was cooked… would’ve been decent.
It took forever to get our food, and in the end I’m glad I ordered the 4.95 ramen and nothing pricier. I could see everyone working their butt off at least. So at least it wasn’t intentionally bad service.
Genkotsu…I give you a benefit of a doubt since it was a soft grand opening (I presume) and 50 people came down on you all at once. You were unorganized and definitely overwhelmed, but at least I felt like you guys were trying. It’s too bad all the food was rushed out. Food would’ve been decent if not.

Nothing really spectacular on this restaurant, I was probably more fortunate than Ching T and Andrew F, because I was seated closer to where the boss who input the order into the screen. This seat was better cause they could always check whether they gave the food to the right person.
Yes, I must say, they’re not prepare for a crowd like this, and the waiter was so confused when we made little changes to our order, for example, when we asked question whether we could add toppings, she wasn’t even sure the answer to that. I think that’s pretty much tell you that everyone working there were not fully informed on what they were serving there that night.
If this was what happened on the opening night, I couldn’t fathom what would happen during regular night, because opening night supposed to be impressive and made you come back. They gave us a $ 3 discount card to come back before May 15 and I tossed that out cause it’s not a guarantee that I would even come back here for my ramen fix.
Overall quality of the food was just so-​so, I felt like they gave us fat of the pork for the meat rather than the real meat, because we paid $ 4.95 instead of the regular price of $ 7.95 and they were good at giving options on what kind of noodles you want (thick curly, thin curly, thin straight or thick straight), and even with that, they messed up my friend’s noodle order. I got #5 with the spicy broth, it came with bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, abit of green veggie, flavored egg, and 2 slices of meat. I hate to say it, but I was definitely not impressed at all.
On that night, we were entertained by a pianist who sang very very well and some live music, so other than that, I think this place doesn’t deserve more than 3 stars and that’s barely, I was going to say about 2.5stars. I know the manager was saying sorry about the mess as it’s opening night, but it’s just not right.

I went with Chris (see review below) for the grand opening and must say that the ramen broth was pretty good. The pork slices itself deserves 5 stars. My whole table instantly noticed them and agreed that it was hands down better quality (thicker, juicier, more flavor) than any other pork we’ve had with ramen.
For those who enjoy spicy stuff like me, I strongly suggest… no, I DEMAND that you try the triple spicy broth! The noodles to me was standard, but I did like the fact that you can choose the type you get (thin straight, thin curly, thick straight, thick curly).
The restaurant setting was nice and definitely a place to unwind after work with some friends. They even had a live band playing soft favorites in the back. Nice touch.
Only con that I have is that it took a long time for the food to come out. I think it was because it was their first day and they were so busy because of the grand opening special ($ 4.95 for a bowl of ramen). Hopefully someone in the future can give an update on the wait time when the staff settles in and gets into their groove :)

i went here for a meetup event with ryan w, kevin c, john w, rosie n, and dan h. to check out the grand opening of this place with their ramen special of 4.95. All of us had 2 bowls each because although they were big we couldnt resist the good music and the overall vibe. they had a live band (mayu wakisaka) playing loungy jazz music.
the pork salt broth was definitely the overall favorite for the group and the pork slices (kurobata?), was thick and very flavorful.
parking runs anywhere from 4 to 8 or free if you find street parking
all in all, a good experience with comfy chairs and an easy relaxed place to kick back with friends.

This may be the first the hardest one-​star review I’ve written so far. I wanted to like Genkotsu, I really did. The owner was really nice, but it just went bad. Wrong place — wrong time — wrong… everything.
I heard about the Grand Opening of Genkotsu through a friend and thought it would be cool to experience the grand opening of any store. There was a special deal going on that #1−3 of their ramen was offered at a discounted of $ 4.95 price vs the usual $ 7.95 price.
When I arrived, the owner Eiji was very energetic and enthusiastic, greeting me at the door and welcoming me in to have a good time. It seemed promising. What struck me immediately was the neon lights. They made me think I stepped into some random karaōke bar. There were a handful of servers at the ready as people were filing in. Again — promising.
Ching T, Christine Y, Barry, and I were looking over the menus and not more than 30 secs after we started looking, the server came over to ask us what we wanted. Damn, we should have ordered right then and there, although we weren’t ready yet. Why? Because it would be a good 15 minutes before any server would walk up to us. It’s not that they didn’t see us. They were too busy to come by. They even saw us waving our hands, but they shot us no attention. 15 MINUTES just to place the order!
We ordered 2 orders of the King Ramen [cooked in soy sauce] and 2 orders of the Queen Ramen [cooked in salt broth], along with the King Genkotsu gyoza and the fried squid.
It took 25 minutes for the food to come out. 25 MINUTES! From flagging down a server to getting our food was a precious 40 minutes we could have spent going to Mitsuru to get some takoyaki and imagawayaki — but we didn’t :(
No offense, but how long does it take to prepare ramen?
Once the food started arriving, the server would come by, not even tell us what the order is. He would borderline drop it on the table and just walk away. We would have to identify it for ourselves. And when I say the server walked away, he frickin’ beelined the hell away — Ching tried getting is attention, even yelling after him, and he just ran the other way.
All of our food was a product of ‘too much going on and too little stuff to do it’.
King Genkotsu Gyoze: Our gyoza was inconsistent. There was one side that was crispy, and on the other, borderline raw. The meat filling seemed very poor quality and processed meat-​ish. I dipped mine in soy sauce and the chili pepper mixture they had — the sauce managed to pick up the slack a little. [2.5/10]
Fried Squid: The moment this dish met the table, all 4 of us commented the same: ‘Oh great… it looks bland’ — and would you know it? It was bland. The batter around the squid was chalky and not all cooked. The squid itself was okay, but there was no flavor at all. I was hoping that, as with the gyoza, the sauce would save it. But alas, lightning didn’t strike twice. [0/​10]
King Ramen: The good? The fatty pork was tasty. The bad? Everything else. The broth took a while for my tongue and taste buds to get accustomed to. The consistency of the ramen was hard, and borderline undercooked. The bamboo they gave was good, but there were probably 4 pieces, which made me sad. Overall, it would have been good if the cooks spent more time on the ramen, but Genkotsu seemed extremely understaffed and it showed in the quality of the food. [2/​10]
VERDICT:
I really want to give Genkotsu a second chance — especially on a night where they aren’t so busy. Unfortunately, that chance may not come around since Little Tokyo is flush with so many other grand places I’d like to try out.
BONUS:
LA Chicken is right up the street and was an excellent bailout. The four of us ventured there afterwards and enjoyed a satisfying 2^nd meal. Thanks Ching for the invite! :D