By Ellyn Pak

Remember when the temperature dropped a few degrees last week and it actually felt like autumn? It was a perfect time to quash a ramen craving I had for a few months. I met up with a few lunchmates at Mitsuwa Marketplace’s food court in Costa Mesa for the first time … and felt silly that as a huge ramen fan (both authentic noodles and the ones that come in styrofoam cups), I hadn’t tried Santouka Ramen.

For $6.99, I got a piping hot shoyu ramen bowl that included noodles in a broth flavored with soy sauce. The broth, not too creamy or watery, filled in the cracks of my 7-month pregnant belly. I could tell my baby girl enjoyed the ramen, too.

If I had gotten a smaller portion, I’d probably steal a few bites from Kat’s kara miso (spicy) ramen bowl. And yes, that’s Kat taking a photo of her lunch with her iPhone. Doesn’t everyone take pictures of their food?

Here’s Iris, aka RawFishionado,??enjoying??an ikura bowl with ramen. Here are the deets of the combo set she ordered.

I just had to seal the deal with a piece of Today’s Cake (they sell it everyday) at the Italian Tomato/Maestro stall not too far from Santouka in the food court. It almost seemed wrong to eat the pastry goodness topped with fruits, cream and powdered sugar. At $4.20 a piece, the dessert is a bit expensive but so worth it.

I’ll definitely go back to the Mitsuwa food court when the weather cools down. For now, I think I’ll get myself some frozen yogurt.

Santouka Ramen and Italian Tomato/Maestro

Mitsuwa Marketplace

665 Paularino Ave.

Costa Mesa, CA 92626

(714) 557-6699

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Japanese, Restaurants by price: $0-$14. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.