Mitsuwa is having its Umaimono Gourmet Fair and Tanaka Sobaten is making an appearance. There’s exactly one item on the menu: their signature chuuka soba.

The ramen comes with just a few basic toppings: lots of green onions and deeply marinated menma, and a few thinly sliced pieces of chashu.

The ramen is delicious! The flat wide noodles is a feature of kitakata-style ramen goes very well with the crunchy, tasty onions. The soup is richer than it looks, and has a strong pork and shoyu flavor. The noodles hold everything together, and the almost melt-in-your-mouth chashu is an added bonus.

So what’s the verdict? A picture is worth a thousand words:

Tanaka Sobaten makes its brief appearance at the Costa Mesa Mitsuwa supermarket until tomorrow, Sunday 10/21. Then it moves to the Mitsuwa in Torrance 10/25 Thursday through 10/28 Sunday.

4 thoughts on “ramen quick review: tanaka sobaten chuuka soba – costa mesa, ca”

  1. Hi Ed! I must’ve missed you by a couple hours!?? You know the chuka soba naming threw me off too, but it seems to be more a shio actually.  It was my first Kitakata style ramen so was really looking forward. Probably more rustic and flavors on the subtle side but I enjoyed it too. Hope you’re doing well!

    1. Hi Dennis! Oh, were you there today? Shoot. I was there a little before 12:30. Yeah, just from the name, I was expecting more of a shoyu. But it was like a tonkotsu-shio…and I could taste the chicken too. I really liked the onion/noodle combo. Oh, and have you ever tried Iroha at the Torrance Marukai? I was at the Costa Mesa Marukai today and Iroha’s opening there. It’s *really* good!

      1. Hmm, we must of missed each other by only a few minutes, I was there a little past 1pm. I had to also sit at the plastic folding table at the ends, the food court was packed as usual.
        I’ve tried Iroha’s toyama black and spicy red a couple months ago. Yeah it’s the bomb and really glad they’ll be there permanently now. A nice addition where we’re too saturated with kyushu tonkotsu spots already.

      2. Haha, I sat at one of the folding tables too.
        And maybe that’s why I enjoyed tanaka sobaten so much…it’s been a while since I’ve had a good bowl of something besides a straight tonkotsu ramen.

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