Ramen Nagi — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Ramen Nagi opened a few months ago at Century City, and was much anticipated. Ever since, they have had a line out the door.

In order to get a seat, you are required to wait in line in person. No online check in, no wait list, just a good old fashion waiting in line system.

The inside is brightly lit with many tables and about four seats at a bar in front of the kitchen. The kitchen is an open kitchen where you can see noodles cooking and bowls assembled. There is no bathroom in the restaurant, only the one around the corner outside.

Nagi offers many different types of classic Tonkotsu bowls including an original, red oil, black garlic oil, and more. They let you chose the intensity of your salt, oil, garlic, and toppings.

For my first time, I am going to go with most of the recommended items, only making an alteration to my noodle choice -- firm thick noodles. I am adding an egg to my bowl because the base bowl does not come with one. I am also ordering both styles of pork to try them both.

Overall: 8/10. Would recommend. The best part about Ramen Nagi is the ability to dial in how you want your bowl. Start with the chefs recommendations and you can decide if you want something with more or less salt, oil, or garlic. But what I enjoyed is changing to thick firm noodles, the thing I always miss when I am served thin noodles. The broth is well done, a traditional style Tonkotsu broth. Not overly rich, with good warm flavor and great texture. I do wish it was a bit more potent to back up the thick noodles. I think this would be fine with thin noodles. But even then, I would get firm or extra firm thin noodles only. It seems like with the other ingredients, they just barely missed the mark of excellence. The egg was slightly over cooked, modifying the desired texture. The kakuni had too strong of a mirin wine taste in my opinion, making it sharper than it was sweeter. The chashu was lacking in flavor, just seeming pale. The toppings are okay, but adding more is costly.

There are a few things of note in this restaurant. First is that they really try to make their turnover as fast as possible. This is great when you are trying to get a seat, but isn’t a place that you’d be hanging around for a while grabbing drinks with a large party. In fact, they don’t even serve alcohol drinks! While they might be losing out on the people buying marked up drinks, they might be able to make up for it by getting parties out the door faster. They hand you the menu to fill out before you get seated, and they also drop the check while you are half way through your meal to pay at the counter on the way out.

One other consideration is that because you have to wait in line in person, you are literally burning your parking meter time. Parking is not cheap here, and whereas other restaurants you can put your name on a wait list, here you are required to wait in line, so you can’t multitask and shop while you wait.

It is nice that they provide pitchers of water on the table. This is great to counter the saltiness of the soup without relying on the busy waiters to refill your water. Also great for me who guzzles water. But what is not great is that there is no bathroom inside the restaurant. The closest bathroom is outside around the corner.

Overall a great experiencing, getting an excellent score in two of the trinity, the broth and noodles. However, be mindful of the other considerations I...

An extremely authentic ramen experience located where you'd least expect it. I have low expectations for bougie locations, as they usually don't nail the authenticity, but this place delivered and then some. I give it a 9/10 on taste alone.

They offer extremely customizable bowls, allowing you to choose your levels of spice and garlic, what type of greens (cabbage or green onion), what kind of pork, what kind of noodles, the firmness of the noodles, and allow for extras. The ramen is DELICIOUS! The broth is so creamy and savory; you can't go wrong with either of the noodle types; the pork belly is so fatty and flavorful, and the optional add-ons are all amazing.

The cons, few as there are, are that the items themselves are plain. Where other ramen places come with complimentary seaweed, shoyu hard boiled egg, narutomaki (fishcake, this thing: 🍥), etc, here they're all premium extras at additional cost. A regular bowl itself comes just with noodles, broth, greens, garlic, wood ear mushroom, and pork, which itself is around $15, and all extras are about $1. (And there's no 🍥!) So, it's a little on the pricey side and can feel comparatively barren.

The staff are extremely friendly and always offer to explain their menu before you order. The atmosphere is what I imagine a real ramen joint looks like in Japan (although admittedly I've never been), and I've been told that this place makes all their noodles from scratch in-house, where many other places buy pre-made noodles. I've only been told that last point, so take that as hearsay.

All in all, a super delicious, filling, and authentic bowl of ramen at semi-reasonable prices. I highly recommend this place if you like ramen or have never tried it before. Beware: there's always a line out the door! (It's usually not too long a...

General: 7.5/10

Saw this place when they were still under construction and now got the chance to try it for the first time. I came around 1:30 pm and took 15 mins for the wait on Monday with not busy time, might take longer during the weekend.

I experienced an unusual way to get an order when the guy outside handed me a paper to order without the menu. I was lost; maybe he did not know it was my first time. I chose it based on my instincts and chose all standard options. I ordered the Red King Spicy, all normal with salt, oil, garlic, pork, green onions, spicy, and normal thick (not thin) noodles, and added seaweed for $1.25 and Tamago (style egg) for $1.95. The ramen came out after 5 mins when I got seated.

The ramen was a bit salty compared to the normal salt, so I suggest you order may lighter to get a better taste. They forgot to bring my seaweed, and I asked them halfway through eating. Limited ingredients to choose from or add on, but it's okay. It might be better to choose thin noodles instead of thick ones.

Finally, I asked the guy for the menu since I did not even know they had it because he only handed me the order paper. They have pictures so you can imagine how your ramen looks like if you're a visual person.

Most people finished their bowls, but not me, since I couldn't eat much and asked for a to-go box. They do not have paper bags, only plastic, and I asked one of the servers there if they ever use paper bags or different bags for clients. They said no. It looks ugly with the plastic bag I took a picture carrying around while walking and shopping at the mall.

The ramen price is not cheap, which is not acceptable with the low quality of the amenities. The street foods even have bags of to-go foods. Please consider...