Tacos Arizas – 3.0/5.0

Every time I’ve been to Tacos Arizas, it’s always after a brutal “Camp 24” workout at 24hr Fitness. “Camp 24” is basically “jazzercise” and every class is pretty much like this: CLICK HERE. Needless to say, I go every Wednesday from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. (See you all in about 17 hours.) Since I’m coming from an exhausting workout, that usually means I’m starving for food and pretty much anything will do. Despite eating on an empty stomach after a grueling workout, the tacos at Tacos Arizas are only average at best.

Tacos Arizas (“Arizas”) is located in Echo Park, just off Sunset Boulevard. On any given day, the taco truck will be located on Logan Street, either north or south of Sunset. Thankfully, they purchased a bright neon sign to help guide their potential customers to the correct destination.

If you’re starting from downtown and traveling west on Sunset, you’ll eventually run into a restaurant with a huge sign that says “PESCADO MOJADO.” That’s Logan Street.

The tacos go for $1.25 each and Arizas has got every kind of meat you’d normally associate with a taqueria.

My main gripe about Arizas is with the poor quality meat they use for their tacos. Nonetheless, I really can’t complain when I just paid $5.00 for dinner.

Unfortunately, Arizas does not have a rotating spit and thus the al pastor is simply re-fried on a grill and served hot. Arizas uses store-bought tortillas, but thankfully places them on the grill to heat them up which gives them a decent texture. Double unfortunately, re-frying the meat is also what leads me to give Arizas only a 3.0 Jarritos rating. The asada and al pastor in my tacos came out slightly overcooked. The juicy meat that is regularly found at Kike’s is missing at Arizas. I kept trying to convince myself that the tacos at Arizas were something special. In the end, the tacos were nothing new and purely average.

Despite this, one thing Arizas does have that Kike’s does not is the great tasting lime Jarritos!

I’ve claimed in the past that taquerias selling Jarritos (specifically, lime Jarritos) will earn “bonus points.” In actuality, I only use this as a “tipping point” when giving my final rating. In other words, the fact that Arizas sells lime Jarritos doesn’t automatically earn it an extra Jarritos on the Jarritos rating scale. It simply nudges me one way or the other when determining my final rating.

So, how do the tacos taste? A bit salty. I’m not sure if the cook threw on some salt when he was re-frying my taco meat, but that’s how it tasted. I must admit that I’m overly sensitive to salty things since I try to cook my meals with as little (if any) salt as possible. I seriously shudder when I think back to my childhood days when I used to eat my white rice by pouring a little bit of soy sauce on top. I’ve reached that point where every meal at a nice/fancy restaurant tastes too salty, so I’ll end up gulping down 8 glasses of water and the waiter gets cranky because he has to come fill my glass every 3 minutes.

Ever wonder how some people can live past 40? As I was eating my tacos and staring at Arizas’ menu, I couldn’t help but notice another patron and his eating habits. This guy was a Hispanic dude who must’ve been in his late 40’s. I called him a “regular” because when I ordered from the Arizas lady, I couldn’t help but notice a large can of Monster energy drink next to the cash register. Odd, I thought, since Arizas would be the first taqueria to offer ridiculous energy drinks in addition to the usual beverages. Turns out, the lady at Arizas was just holding the Monster energy drink for the “regular,” since he came back from his errand, grabbed his tacos and the Monster energy drink and proceeded to eat.

So, this regular cracks open his Monster energy drink, proceeds to the “salsa bar,” puts his tacos on the counter, cracks open a salt packet and then pours the salt all over his tacos. (Note: I use the term “salsa bar” in quotations since it’s not really a bar but rather a counter that contains salsa verde and roja in clear plastic ketchup bottles, along with sliced radish, lemons and onions/cilantro mix.) As I mentioned before, I thought the tacos at Arizas were on the salty side. I CANNOT IMAGINE what they’d taste like after dumping a packet of salt on them. In fact, just watching this regular pour salt on his tacos made my heart contract in fear. I had to calm myself down by drinking another swig of my lime Jarritos and contemplate whether that was enough and that maybe I should order another lime Jarritos to make sure my heart would be able to calm itself down to have a good night’s sleep.

Then I was reminded of my buddy from high school, Steve Miksis. (Note: If anyone knows Steve Miksis, please give me his email. Thanks.) My buddy was a starter on the high school volleyball team and was therefore in pretty good shape. However, he would regularly salt his pizza. To explain, he would get a slice of pizza, then he would grab the salt shaker and proceed to add salt to his pizza before eating it. Frankly, that’s fucking disgusting. One time, we ate at Jack in the Box and he ordered that burger that I used to call the “heart explosion.” I forgot what the exact name of the burger was called, but it had FOUR hamburger patties and EIGHT strips of bacon. My buddy then proceeded to rip off the top bun, grab two salt packets, empty them both into the burger, put the bun back on, and eat the entire thing. I was so disgusted that I never went back to Jack in the Box for at least 4 years. (And the only reason I’d go back now is to claim my two free tacos, courtesy of the Lakers beating Orlando in Game 1 of the 2009 Finals.)

What does this have to do with Tacos Arizas? Absolutely nothing. Just kidding. I just wish that the tacos at Arizas were a tad less salty. I mainly wish that the tacos were made with better quality meat, with just a little more “punch” from the seasoning. Then again, as stated earlier, I’m complaining about dinner that cost me $5.00. The tacos at Arizas are decent and there’s always a small crowd of people surrounding the truck.

But it’s missing that extra ingredient that pushes it beyond an “average taco” into a “Wow, I cannot wait to have these tacos again” feeling. Rather, “I cannot wait to completely ruin my workout with tacos again” feeling.

Tacos Arizas – 3.0/5.0 Jarritos
Address: Logan Street and Sunset Boulevard
Google Maps: Link

Much love till my next post.

Note to my loyal readers who visit Tacos Arizas:

If you’re going to eat your tacos at Arizas, make sure you stay to the left of the taco stand, unless you like eating your tacos while listening to the noise of a generator and getting high off gasoline fumes.

Orochon Ramen – 3.0/5.0 Negi

When I had my first bowl of ramen at Orochon Ramen back in 2004, I was the only customer in the restaurant. Recently, if you want to have dinner at Orochon Ramen, you’ll probably have to wait in line. Why anyone would wait in line for a bowl of ramen at this place baffles me.

Orochon Ramen prides themselves in presenting ramen that is loaded with spices. As the menu indicates, you can order EIGHT different grades of spicy in addition to a regular bowl of ramen.

In fact, if you take the Orochon Challenge and order the “Special 2” ($0.50 extra) and finish it within 30 minutes, you’ll have your picture taken and posted on the “Orochon Wall of Bravery.”

Ramen aside, this is actually a pretty funny concept since I would like to one day chill out at Orochon and wait for the late-night drunks to come pouring in and daring each other to do the Orochon Challenge. And yes, other people’s pain greatly amuses me. (And yes, I’m the guy who roots for the figure skaters to fall. Uhh, I mean, I don’t watch figure skating – I only watch hockey during the Winter Olympics…)

After eating at Orochon countless times over the past 5 years, I decided it was time to give it a proper review. My guests included Erai, Hugh-chan, and A# (“A-sharp”) [all aliases, in case you didn’t figure that out].

Anyone who knows of my love affair with ramen knows that my favorite ramen dish is “tonkotsu ramen with kimchi,” which is a huge difference from “kimchi ramen,” the latter being a spice-infused broth with added kimchi, as opposed to the former which is regular tonkotsu broth with kimchi added as a side dish. A spicy broth is far inferior to a regular tonkotsu broth with kimchee added, if that makes any sense. Just trust me. Seeing as how this was a JET Program reunion, I decided to ask the Orochon waiter if I could get a side of kimchi. His response, “Sorry, no kimchi. Go to Koreatown for that.”

No joke, that was his response.

The table immediately burst into laughter as I suddenly realized that this guy was telling me to go to Koreatown for kimchi, as if implying that this was a Japanese restaurant and Japanese restaurants don’t serve Korean items. And yet, of all the hundreds of ramen shops I ate at in Japan NOT ONE ever served a ridiculously spicy bowl of ramen, something that my Korean buddy told me occurred literally everywhere in Korea. Ha ha. Whatever. Not funny. I get it. Just give me the regular stuff, guy.

As you can probably tell, Orochon is not exactly an impressive ramen shop, so let’s start with the positives. Orochon serves water in these giant plastic cups, a welcome relief from the usual 2 oz. glasses you’ll get at every other ramen shop. Okay, maybe the usual glasses aren’t 2 ounces, but it seriously feels that way.

Orochon also serves beer on tap, however we had just watched the Lakers defeat Orlando at Weiland’s Brewery (with Derek Fisher hitting a game-tying 3 pointer and a monster 3 in overtime to put the Lakers up 3-1 – right after Kobe threw a Barkley-esque elbow), so we were a little beered out.

It’s also a big enough place so they can seat a bit more people than you would expect at an ordinary ramen shop.

And that’s about it. Unfortunately, Orochon fails to deliver a stellar bowl of ramen.

Let’s start from the little things and end with the big things. First, the “shinachiku” (bamboo shoots) are way too big and thick to belong in a bowl of ramen. Second, Orochon doesn’t include chashu pork, but instead thinly sliced cooked pieces of pork more akin to bacon (but without the delicious bacon flavor). Instead of biting into a nice piece of barbequed pork while eating your ramen, you’re left searching for tiny flakes of tasteless pork to eat. Not satisfying at all.

Third, Orochon drops a few slices of green bell pepper into the soup. I’m still not sure how I feel about this. Again, out of the hundreds of shops I visited in Japan, not one was daring enough to put slices of green peppers with their ramen. (That’s probably because Japanese green peppers, or “pee-man” [not joking at all, they literally call green peppers “p-man” and it’s pronounced “pee-mahn”], are completely different to their American counterpart, with the Japanese kind having a very thin and thicker skin but also a slightly bitter (yet delicious) taste.) If a gun was pointed at my head, I’d never include slices of green peppers in my ramen. However, I must applaud Orochon for doing so, since it actually mixes up the flavors a bit and provides a nice contrast to the usual ingredients found in a regular bowl of ramen.

Additionally, Orochon drops in about 3-4 nice big pieces of seaweed. But we’re not talking about the paper-thin slices of seaweed. I’m talking about the big thick “kombu” kind, which looks like mini bowtie pasta, but replace pasta with seaweed. Again, I must applaud Orochon for including such thick pieces of seaweed in contrast to the usual paper-thin slices we find at regular ramen shops.

But the two most important things in a bowl of ramen are completely unsatisfactory at Orochon: (1) the “men” (noodles) and (2) the soup.

The noodles at Orochon taste weak and on the border of being labeled flavorless. The noodles taste flat and there’s just no kick, no spark, no burst of flavor. Instead of gulping down the bowl of ramen, I found my pace starting to slow as I was eating, not from my stomach getting too full (which would be impossible), but because the noodles slowly started to detract from the experience with each bite.

The same goes for the soup: there’s only one layer of flavor, and once you get past that you start wondering why you’re even bothering to eat this bowl of ramen. The first 4-6 slurps of Orochon’s ramen is not bad, even bordering on fairly decent. However, as your move your way down towards the middle and the end of your ramen-eating experience, the soup slowly gets worse up until the point when you start questioning whether you can really eat another bite simply because you’ve now gone from having a decent experience to being stuck with a bowl of ramen that is truly nothing special.

And that’s my main problem with Orochon, besides the spicy gimmick: the closer you get to finishing the bowl, the worse it gets. After eating about 70% of my bowl, I just couldn’t take it. Trust me, there was plenty of room for ramen in my stomach, but just not Orochon’s.

Would I recommend people try Orochon? Absolutely. It’s definitely worth checking out once, especially if there’s an enormous line outside Daikokuya and there’s no line at Orochon (which is hardly the case these days, since both shops are typically jam-packed). Would I wait more than 5 minutes to eat at Orochon? I’d actually be hard pressed to climb the three flights of stairs just to eat at Orochon, so I doubt I’d have the patience to wait five minutes.

And what did my company think about Orochon?

Hugh-chan:

[Thumbs down...]

A#:

[Over it...]

Erai:

[Thumbs down...]

Your faithful narrator:

[Meh... Average...]

Final Rating: 3.0/5.0 Negi

Orochon Ramen
Address: 123 S. Onizuka Street, Los Angeles, CA (3rd Floor)
Google Map: Link

Much love till my next post.

Kintarō Ramen (Vancooover) – 3.0/5.0 Negi

This year, the lady and I took a mini-vacation to Vancooover, Canada. Apparently, the most popular ramen spot in Vancooover is this place called Kintarō Ramen, located on Denman Street. We walked by it a few times and there was always a huge line outside. Naturally, I HAD to check it out.

The result? Severely disappointed.

Kintarō Ramen had all the makings of a truly amazing ramen shop: Japanese clientele, authentic wood spoons (instead of that plastic stuff), bare bones décor, efficient cooks, and (allegedly) tonkotsu broth. Yet the main problem with Kintarō Ramen is that the soup lacked any depth. It lacked soul. After getting over the initial taste of the soup, I kept waiting for the depth to explode and unlock these complex and rich flavors. Instead, I kept waiting and staring at the ceiling like an idiot.

Located in the West End of Vancooover, Kintarō Ramen occupies a prime location. According to our gracious hosts in Vancooover, the location where Denman Street and Robson Street intersect is a place where most foreign exchange students congregate. Our hotel was conveniently located about 5 minutes away from this place. In all honesty (and considering how the weather in Vancooover was sunny and clear the weekend we were there), if I were to live in Vancooover (don’t tempt me!), I’d definitely live in the West End, simply because of the fine selection of restaurants located in the area. In fact, and don’t tell my bosses, as soon as I got back from Vancooover, I immediately started looking at condo prices online. People in Canada are some of the nicest English-speaking people I’ve ever come across, yet they seem to bitch about how expensive Vancooover is. I didn’t find it to be that bad. It’s much like L.A., except cheaper thanks to the favorable currency exchange rate.

Back to the ramen.

Remember Spreewell’s guide to waiting? Well, if I had to wait more than 10 minutes for Kintarō Ramen, I would be PISSED. Speaking of my guide to waiting, I’m considering re-vamping my ramen rating system. I’m wondering if I should skip the “negi” rating and just rate places by how long I would wait before snapping and bashing my head through a glass window. Of course, Mujyaki in Jiyūgaoka (in Tokyo) would get the “indefinite wait” and Mr. Ramen would get the “Sorry, but I have to wash my hair” rating.

At first glance, Kintarō Ramen is very bare bones. But that’s usually a good thing. Shops that try to dress it up tend to spend more time on décor and less time on their ramen.

Kintarō Ramen also passes the “ethnicity test,” meaning that (1) the menu is not entirely in English, and (2) the clientele is mostly the same type of ethnicity as the type of food. Within 1 minute of getting seated at Kintarō Ramen, I was feeling pretty damn good about this place.

What really got my hopes up was how you could pick the richness of your broth, something I haven’t seen at all in L.A., but something I would see all the time in Japan. Kintarō Ramen gives you the option of a light, regular, or fatty (kotteri) broth. Guess which one I took.

Moreover, Kintarō Ramen gives you the choice of chashu (bbq pork): lean or fatty. Again, guess which one I chose.

By the way, if any ramen shop offers you the choice of lean or fatty pork, you ALWAYS take the fatty pork. It’s like choosing between having your steak cooked “well done” or “medium rare.”

What else about Kintarō Ramen got my hopes up? The efficiency of the cooks. Just two guys, one maintaining the soup, and the other one boiling the men (noodles). Both would throw in the condiments one right after the other, as if they were a mochi-making team.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsuiBVOVg1c&feature=related

(Note: mochi is basically rice that’s been pounded into a thick paste/bar and is damn delicious. It’s basically the Japanese version of Lembas Bread: “One small bite is enough to fill a grown man.” Okay, I’m done nerding out.)

Yet despite all these positive characteristics of Kintarō Ramen, the final product was flat-out disappointing. I wanted so much more from Kintarō Ramen, and yet all I got was average ramen. The men (noodles) was plainly average, nothing special. Thankfully it didn’t detract from the experience, but it certainly didn’t enhance it. What I wanted was soup that would take me straight back to the finest ramen shops in Japan. Instead, all I got was the mediocre run-of-the-mill ramen shop you’d find on every corner in Japan. The best I can describe the soup is that it lacked depth.

As always, I judge every ramen shop by how good/bad their soup is – the sign of an excellent ramen shop is when you can ignore the men and the condiments and simply drink the soup by itself. At Kintarō Ramen, I couldn’t even finish my soup – a sign of disrespect to the cooks. Whatever, I won’t be back for a while, if ever.

After eating this disappointing bowl of ramen, I suddenly remembered that there were at least two ramen shops within 5 minutes of Kintarō Ramen. Instantly it hit me – what if these other ramen shops took one taste of a bowl at Kintarō Ramen and thought to themselves “Hey, this ain’t that good. I bet I could do better!” When I make it to Vancooover again (bachelor party in 2010 anyone?!), I will most definitely make it my mission to hit up these two other ramen shops. Part of me wants to believe that these other shops have developed better ramen than Kintarō.

Ugh, just thinking about how truly authentic Kintarō Ramen was makes me even more depressed. It had everything going for it – it feels as if it was actually taken straight from Japan and transplanted smack in the middle of Vancooover. Everything from the wooden ladles to the choose-your-own-soup-broth got my hopes up for a truly amazing experience. Even the employees said their “irashaimase” with vigor.

(Culture Note: When walking into a Japanese restaurant or general shop, you should hear the employees say “irashaimase!” which loosely translates to “welcome.” I say “loosely” because there is really no English equivalent to “irashaimase” – imagine walking into Eddie Bauer and having all the employees shout “Welcome! Thank you for coming! We are honored!”)

(This brings up a funny story. What the hell do you say when the employees shout out “irashaimase!” to you? When I was in Japan (Hakodate) for summer school, a visiting professor, Akira Miura [who wrote the textbook we used: “An Integrated Approach To Intermediate Japanese”], came to give a guest lecture. When he opened up the floor to questions, a brave soul asked him “What the hell do you say when store employees shout out ‘irashaimase’?!” The entire class laughed, not because of the ridiculous question but rather because EVERYONE was thinking the same thing but just never thought about asking a native what to do. His response [which is the response I’ve adopted ever since] was to just simply smile and nod, to acknowledge that you heard their greeting, and go about your business. After the lecture, I asked him to autograph my textbook and he looked at me like I was a total idiot. He signed it anyway. That’s what happens when you win a blinking contest.)

Final thoughts about Kintarō Ramen? I wanted so much more from this tiny little shop. It had so much going for it, and yet the final product just couldn’t deliver. It’s like the LeBron James of ramen shops – great stats and appearance, but just can’t deliver in the end. (By the way, how awesome was tonight’s win over the Magic?!)

Would I recommend Kintarō Ramen to those who visit Vancooover? Yes, but only if you didn’t have to wait more than 5-10 minutes. Anything longer than that, and you might as well walk down the street and get a gyro.

Final Rating: 3.0/5.0 Negi

Kintarō Ramen

Address: 788 Denman Street, Vancouver, B.C.

Google Maps: Link

Much love till my next post.