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Comment by siliconc0w | Hacker News Reader

There used to be a chain in LA called "Chin-ma-ya" that served a variety called "tantanmen" that I haven't found elsewhere. Both the torrance and little tokyo location closed and now I only have vague memories of their terrible looping music to satiate me. You can get tankotsu anywhere but only they had the delicious tantanmen with the golden fried shrimp and the curry-side-dish-thingy. I barely appreciated them when they were here and now I crave what I cannot have.

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For what it's worth, I live in Japan and even though tantanmen is common here, I've never had it with fried shrimp or a curry side dish, so it's very likely a special thing for that particular chain.

I haven't yet tried it, but this place has a version of Japanese-style dan dan mien. Not sure about varieties or quality though…

http://www.yelp.com/biz/beni-tora-los-angeles-3

A second to greggman's rec of Tsujita, as well. They have excellent tsukemen (dipping ramen). Across the street, their second location, Tsujita Annex, has really good tsukemen and their ramen is excellent too, if ridiculously filling.

> You can get tankotsu anywhere

First it's tonkotsu(豚骨). not trying to be snarky. Just passing on info. But second, at least in my experience, all tonkotsu in LA sucks except Tsujita. And even Tsujita sucks unless you get their tsukemen or as they call them "dipping noodles".

Or course everything in food is subjective. I like extremely rich flavorful noodles. Some people like light flavors.

As for tantanmen, apparently real tantanmen (if you can call any food real) is the Chinese kind where there's a thick oily spice sauce at the bottom of the bowl and you have to stir it up. In other words there's no soup.

In Japan there's another style of tantanmen which is has a soup broth. As usual there's a wide variety from light to heavy. The light stuff is not for me but the heavy stuff is AMAZING!!!!

http://i.imgur.com/NzBzAdN.jpg

This is from a chain called 万豚記 (wan-zhu-ji) (memory of ten thousand pigs). It's owned by a corporation that has a zillion restaurants in Japan.

http://kiwa-group.co.jp/brand_search.php

many of them carry this style of heavy tantanmen which I love

> As for tantanmen, apparently real tantanmen (if you can call any food real) is the Chinese kind where there's a thick oily spice sauce at the bottom of the bowl and you have to stir it up. In other words there's no soup.

Oh, yes. The Chinese word is dandanmian, though, and most English-language menus will write it as "dan dan noodles" (and I've seen it written as "dong dong noodles", too).

Where I live (Dallas suburbs), there's one really amazing authentic Sichuan place -- Royal Sichuan -- which serves actual, authentic dandanmian, and it's some of the best food I've ever had in my life. I can't get enough of it.

I haven't had dandanmian in Dallas but I have had it throughout the SF Bay Area and Los Angeles (Monterey Park, Alhambra, the places where many claim the best Chinese food in the USA is). While I like it I don't crave it the way I crave the Japanese style so if you get a chance please come to Japan and try it here. I think you'll like it. Just make sure you pick a good one. There's also plenty of bad ones here too.

all tonkotsu in LA sucks except Tsujita

I've been there and Silverlake Ramen was better. You can probably find more gems around Gardena/Torrance.

Like I said, everyone has different tastes. I've been to around 50 ramen places in and around LA trying to find anything remotely like what I have in Japan. Every place I've been in and around Torrance as absolute shit. Some would give me a bowl of what they called tonkotsu ramen and it tasted like ankake instead. Goopy white cornstarchy sauce with little flavor.

Tsujita was the only one that tasted anything like the kinds I like in Tokyo.

That only makes it better for me though. People like what they like. If you like Sliverlake more power to you. But it's nothing like ramen in Japan.

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