Menya Tigre — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Arrived at restaurant 7:30 pm Ordered curry rice at 8:35 pm Waited time for my curry rice 5 minutes Started eating around 8:43 pm

I love Curry Rice 🍛 so much I have curry rice every 3 weeks at different Japanese restaurants

This is my first experience to have colder curry than any other Japanese curry restaurant

I told Manager about their curry and rice temperature kindly

I believe They should treat customer better way The manager told me temperature was hot With hash attitude

It was not polite at all

Most Japanese restaurants are taking care customer in good attitude

He did not care much about inside customer than someone ordered on the phone and picked up

So I let them warm it again with their microwave which they did before they brought curry rice to me

I started eating curry rice 25 years ago Today was my first time to have this type of curry rice with very low temperature I could say = cold

I Guess Their Rice come from refrigerator Curry made it earlier but it got cold So they warmed it up at little I don’t know how they cooked after I ordered it

It comes within 5 minutes but still cold

I never had this temperature last 25 years

Hope they can make it better

Only one thing I enjoyed Interior design

Service needs training You don’t ask They don’t care much

All of them running around for order

The size of the restaurant is About 20 customers can site and enjoy dinner

So it is not big Restaurant

They should pay attention to customer more who ordered and waited at their restaurant

You will see many are picking up their orders even they ordered after you sitting

Tell you truth, They treated outside customer as their priority

Who ever come to restaurant and eating are 2nd

Also I surprised the manager does not listen customer for their own good

Keep his attitude on his way

No one can wait over hour to pay cold curry rice

I believe no one wants to eat this way on Friday night

Hope they checked social and learn from their mistakes

I don’t go there until one of my friend tells...

I discovered this restaurant because of an article online. It got me drooling 🤤 after seeing pictures that Yelpers posted!

Anyhow, you can do reservations from Yelp app which is wonderful but then again, I don't think many people know about this place so the waitlist was basically non-existent (I hope fellow reviewers can help this restaurant to get more traffic).

Alright, moving on to food! We decided to try their Keema Bowl (basically beef bowl curry rice) 🍚. We enjoyed it a lot. I thought the seasoning was just right, not too salty (did you know: eating too much salt can cause puffiness on your face? BAD! 😧). I like my rice a little dry and that's what I got (so it doesn't taste like porridge). 😅 Next, we also ordered the Keema noodle (dry ramen, it's first on the list). The ramen texture was amazing, it tasted.. special. I can't think of a typical food dish to describe it, I don't think I have tasted anything like it. The dish came with minced pork, it was 😋. The last main dish we got was curry tsukumen 🍜. If you have tried Tsujita LA and tried their famous tsukumen but feel like their waitlist is making you go 😡. I would recommend coming here! The broth is curry flavored and I loved it! It comes with a slice of chasiu.

What I wish could be better? The amount of meat per bowl. Noticed how I said the tsukumen only has a slice of chasiu? I wish it was a joke. This also applies to the Keema noodle, unfortunately. Nevertheless, you could always get additional meat. Also, there was a weird male waiter here. His mind seemed to be somewhere else. I ordered water with no ice, it came with ice. I asked for check, check never came. 😯 I asked for one to-go box, he gave two after echoing the quantity. As soon as I asked other servers for what I needed, it came almost right away. Little weird experience there but no biggie!

Nevertheless, I love this place and would be coming back again in a couple of weeks or so! 😊 I recommend this place if you love...

🍜 chashu ramen 🗓️ 04/2025

Well, I was planning to grab CoCo right across the street but didn't feel like joining the peak lunch queue there. Tigre seemed like the most logical fallback. They specialize in curry ramen, which certainly sets them apart from all the shops on Sawtelle and in SoCal. I tried their tsukemen quite a while back, so ramen was the pick of the day.

The blend of spices they used for the curry soup was quite delicious. Usually, when I crave CoCo curry, 50% is me craving curry, and 50% is me craving a guaranteed spicy hit of that level 10 config. Pivoting to Tigre, I thought I was giving up the need for heat, but they provided a jar of spicy fried garlic that really gave this the extra kick, so of course, I dumped quite a bit in 🥵 The fried garlic flavor worked surprisingly well in curry too.

The noodles were nothing to write home about, but they paired well enough. The thickness and chew reminded me of those used in miso ramen. The toppings further mirrored that similarity with a decent chunk of bean sprouts for that crunch. I honestly wish the sprouts got some wok action to give them a seared finish and that smoky aroma instead of just a quick blanch. The chashu men came with a few more slices of chashu, but in hindsight, the regular amount should suffice. Not really a fan of torched chashu in SoCal because most shops will blast them for too long, resulting in a drier texture on the leaner parts. Same thing here...

Overall, pretty solid option on Sawtelle, and perhaps the only shop I don't mind revisiting when I'm in the area? I saw they have some new non-curry tori paitan options that might be worth checking out over all the tonkotsu shops in the area 😆

Come read more of my gibberish writings on ig...