Midtown Lunch

The reaction to Tsujita’s new “Annex” across Sawtelle has been pretty schizophrenic in the few weeks it’s been open.  For every ramenologist excited to discover that they’re serving an almost exact replica of Tokyo’s super famous Jiro style Ramen, there was somebody complaining on Yelp about how many ways the Annex’s bowl of soup is different from the original Tsujita location across the street. How different?  Well, it’s fattier, the noodles are thicker, it’s loaded with cabbage and bean sprouts (the horror!), they fill the bowl up so much the soup falls over the edge, and, the real crime, it’s not going to make the line at Tsujita any shorter. Did we mention how fatty Jiro style ramen is?  It makes the original Tsujita ramen from across the street seem watery.

And even though Tsujita Annex’s ramen is expertly constructed for those who appreciate this kind of ramen, complainers will be happy to know they’re not filling the bowls up to the rim as much as they were at the beginning. And yesterday they started serving their miso ramen…

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When Tsujita first announced that they’d be taking over the old Miyata Menji space to open an “Annex” it made total sense.  The  popular ramen spot on Sawtelle has been perpetually packed for lunch since word got out that they were serving the best bowl of ramen in L.A.  Plus, the original space turns into a ramen-less izakaya at night so having a replicon across the street would not only lessen the lines during lunch but would also give Tsujita’s legions of fans an opportunity to eat their ramen for dinner.

Well, the Annex had their grand opening yesterday after a 4 day invite only trial period and you might be surprised to hear that the bowl of ramen they’re serving is absolutely nothing like the original.  The good news is, it’s nothing like any of the other bowls of ramen in Los Angeles either.

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