Ramen Yokocho Fest 2014 was HOT

Ramen Yokocho Fest is largest ramen show in the US. It took place on March 29-30 2014 at the Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, CA.  The 2013 events welcomed over 30,000 people in Los Angeles and over 15,000 people in Las Vegas. This year’s festival featured exclusive menus from 14 popular Ramen shops in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Jose, San Diego, and Japan. Ramen bowls were $8 per bowl plus $5 admission to Santa Anita Park and $4 parking.

Let’s take a look at what we tried:

I wanted to see what the Ramen Burger craze was about. Fujin offered the Tonkotsu Spicy Miso Ramen Burger. It was described as “fresh vegetables and a beef patty dressed in spicy miso sauce sandwiched between buns made with tonkotsu-flavored chewy noodles”. The line was long so we decided to stand in that one first. As I got to the front of the line, they ran out of burger patties so we had to wait until more were put on the flat top grill. When I finally got one, it was already falling apart. The ramen noodles were unraveling and it was very hard to eat. I noticed that it was only slightly browned on the outside and not the inside (maybe they forgot to flip it, browning both sides would keep the ramen noodles together). The noodles were also very bland and the burger patty was obviously frozen and preformed. The sauce wasn’t spicy and didn’t really help the flavor of the burger at all. Being my first time trying this “craze”, I was not impressed.

 To read more and see slideshow, please visit: http://www.examiner.com/review/ramen-yokocho-fest-2014-was-hot