The Find: Mottainai Ramen in Gardena

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Here’s an early look at our Find of the week, being published in Thursday’s L.A. Times Food section:

Your best introduction to Mottainai Ramen in Gardena might be if you slink in exhausted, after a long day of work, needing some comfort. Duck your head through the Japanese curtains that hang in Mottainai Ramen’s entryway and you’ll be hit by a soothing fog of pork and garlic, as waiters and waitresses shout hearty Japanese greetings and farewells, and somebody lights a wok on fire. Wait, what? A flaming wok? Indeed: Over Mottainai Ramen’s tidy collection of two-person tables and pleasant wooden counters, you’ll often catch, in the open kitchen, one of the chefs expertly flipping a wok. They’re toasting the miso for a serving of the most unique of Mottainai’s three specialties: Sapporo Lover, a pork-intensive ramen saturated with toasted miso. Read on: