Thursday dinner with the boys, decided to finally try out this ramen place in McCully Shopping center. The Asian skank and hooligan wannabe shopping center. The shopping center of profanity sounding eateries, what with “phuket”, “fook yuen”, “dong”. The shopping center of horrible parking. The shopping center of strange clientel going into the 7-11 (actually, I think that describes every 7-11). Set on the second floor at the very ewa end is Yotteko-ya. Some Net research reveals that its a fairly big chain in Japan, go find their webpage & you can sign up for a franchise. We also find out that it’s Kyoto style, if you haven’t gathered that already from the signage, “Rocketed From Kyoto!” I’m not really a ramen expert, but it seems this style is like a blend tonkotsu (pork bone broth). Interior is casual, clean, and not blindingly bright like some places. Pretty nice. The American oldies station being piped in seems a little odd, but its ok. Enough of that, so how is the food? We’ve heard nothing but good things about this place, but never got around to trying it out. What took us so long? So far I’ve tried the shoyu & shio chasiu ramens, gyoza, karaage, chahan. 
First off, must talk about the ramen as that is what this place is about. The broth is wonderfully rich, almost buttery. I prefer the shoyu, it seems to bring out more flavor. The mein, noodles, I’ve only ordered Japanese style. I just can’t bring myself to order it “local” style which is supposed to be softer. It’s like getting zaru soba at a lot of local places that is mush. A total shame of noodles. Here the noodles are done just right. Some of that fungus to give a nice cruch, green onions, nice sprinkling of sesame seed, and the showstopper charsiu. It melts and spreads throughout your mouth. No, we’re not on Iron Chef judging guests here, it really does melt in your mouth.
The other side bits get great reviews too, the gyoza is quite plump, meaty & garlicy. The karaage is tasty and while quite good I think is eclipsed by other items. The chahan (fried rice) is a definite winner. So despite what my face may look like here, Yotteko-ya gets my big thumbs up.
Good. I was hoping someone wrote a review so I didn’t have to! Root and I went there twice last week – once with CMRoy on Tuesday, and once with “The Boys” on Thursday. I also prefer the shoyu-aji over the tonshio-aji. The broth does taste tonkotsu (pork bone) based, but the final flavor isn’t the same as Hakata-style tonkotsu. Noodles are cooked properly “al dente”. The regular serving is a little shy on noodles for the amount of broth in my book, so I order the “oomori” and it works out about right.