Maruya

While trying to pick a dinner/​ramen spot in Little Tokyo and already having won ton noodle soup for lunch, I suggested this place because they had everything from ramen, sushi and curry. I’m pretty sure we could have parked in the complex and got validated but we all parked on the street and paid the meter. (On a side note, the meters here are whack! if there’s already time on the meter and you add to it, it resets!)
The place was nice and clean and the staff was super nice. It was about 5:30, so not very busy yet. My bro in law and his kids had already ordered, because as we know, kids cannot wait to eat. My sister and I ordered two rolls — the eel roll and the spicy tuna roll. The rolls were huge and had big pieces of fish inside and out. While they were generous with the fish, I can’t say either roll was super tasty. They were probably average, enjoyable but nothing spectacular. But maybe its too be expected at a place that serves an array of items.

An impromptu lunch downtown with my wife since she had a test to take at 1PM, we saw this place and thought to give it a whirl. It was a cold and very windy day in LA (how often does that happen) and I knew ramen would be a nice lunch.
I order the Kimchi Ramen and my first taste was WOW! So much flavor and the portion was huge! For $ 11.99, I was just pleased with my selection. My wife, Katrina, had the Chashu Ramen and there literally was a lot of pork hanging on the rim of the bowl, impressive for $ 14.99. I hardly ever write reviews but when I do, it’s because I feel compelled to talk about my genuinely great experience.
The staff was pleasant and attentive, our food came out within minutes of being placed. That’s the complete reason for the 5-​star rating. We sat down at 12:05 PM and we walked out of there at 12:41 PM. That’s great for the quick lunchtime-​ist if you work in this area. Highly recommended… if you love ramen. And if you don’t, well, what’s wrong with you?

So good a lot of food for a reasonable price I had the spicy miso ramen with Katsu and curry rice

Recommended from a friend for good ramen, I stopped by this place in Little Tokyo, LA. It was inside the Japanese Village Plaza. When we got there around 5−6pm, there was no wait for 4 & it was empty. I ordered the Chasu Ramen $ 15 for dinner. Boy, I was in for a treat! When the bowls came out. it was twice as big as most ramen place. For the price it was so worth it! My ramen was a little bland though because I ordered it without the spice (can’t even handle hot cheeto’s!) My boyfriend ordered the same but with extra spice & he said it was super good. The chasu ramen comes with ALOT of chasu. (duhh chasu ramen) so be prepared. I couldn’t even finished my bowl & had to go the rest of it! Our server was very nice & attentive. The ambience was nice. Around 7pm it started getting busy but good thing we were finish by than!

Had to try it after I saw pictures of the chashu ramen!
I got the chashu ramen ($ 14) while the bf got the spicy miso ($ 9). Oh my god, the amount of meat you get for the chashu ramen is ridiculous! It just looks like a bowl of meat with a little bit of soup on top, but there’s noodles under there somewhere! Bf and I split the meat because it was wayyyy tooo much, although I’m not complaining! The meat was a little bit on the fatty side, but whatevz. I also liked the broth for the chashu better — I thought the spicy miso was too salty. Still good, but salty! The food was okay, not bad. Was just something I wanted to try, but tbh I probably won’t be back.
Service was good, can’t complain.

I come here my big family together .
8 people.
My son love ramen so much.
We always go to dinner our Chinese aria.
However, my wife and son want go Japan village today.
Then I take my big family here.
My son ordered tonkotsu ramen .
He love it.
I tried chashu ramen.
I couldn’t finished that.
But, I love this place chashu and soup too.
My wife ordered Kimuchi ramen.
That’s spicy .
But I like it.
If, you take big family go to Japan village ‚
You should come here.
Big place.

Nice and clean restaurant. Good is very good. Brian was very accommodating. I will be back

Since Daikokuya and Marugame Monzo were ridiculously crowded at 8 pm on a Saturday with 20 tables on list, we had to settle with this place. But don’t let the looks of the exterior deceive you or the number of reviews.
Had a good experience here but was constantly eating all day so didn’t enjoy the food as much as I should have. I had the spicy tuna roll which was not bad and I liked that they don’t have a lot of filler like rice so the ratio is good. Also, had to try the ramen since they make noodles in house so opted with the Chasu for $ 15.00 it was steep but I knew why once it came out.
The presentation reminded me of a similar bow I had in Tokyo’s train station — ramen alley and taste was decent. Thinly sliced Chasu to the max on the outer edge of bowl and in middle. The broth seemed to have a lot of white pepper in it though and was surprised that the noodles were so uniform since they’re made in house but wish they were a bit thicker. The egg was disappointing since the outer edge of yoke was cooked and center was a bit yokey but not enough. I also had 2 pieces of maguro of which the tuna was super dark red which was odd as well.
Service was decent for being busy. I would return if the popular ramen/​udon spots were as crazy as they were.

3.5 stars
Was hunting for food during jury duty break, and here I was.
Weekday lunch — Prepare to wait 10 – 15 min depending on your party. If sitting alone, make sure to ask for the bar seats and to write your name down, however, there’s not that many seats available at the bar, but least you get to sit with others.
I believe I ordered a ramen combination for $ 12.95, served with salad, choice of ramen and appetizer spicy tuna roll 8 pieces (sushi was included as an option). The sushi pieces were pretty big, and lots of fish rather than rice. This may sound a little, but it was actually a lot, although the ramen bowl wasn’t a big serving, but the rest of the food fulfilled it.
Service wasn’t all there since during the weekday, lunch hours are much crazier since it’s located in Little Tokyo. I would imagine a lot of office people would come here to grab something to eat then head back to work. I would suggest to order to go, and find a outdoor seating around the plaza and enjoy your meal rather than waiting for seats.
cannot wait to try to come back and try out the other ramen combinations.

I have tried a ton of vegetarian ramen in LA and NYC. Maruya Ramen is a cut WAY above the rest when it comes to having a delicious vegetarian option. At maruya, I ask for spicy veggie ramen with an egg and without nori (NORImally, I love nori but maruya’s version is just a tad too briny for me). It is so, so satisfying. Not too salty at all.
Meat eaters will obviously also love maruya, as 90% of the menu is designed for omnivores. But GO MARUYA for finally having an awesome veggie option in japangeles!

DON’T COME HERE! DON’T COME HERE! DON’T COME HERE!!!
Seriously though, do NOT come here out of desperation because the wait is too long or you happened to see that it has «good» Unilocal reviews. The food is terrible.
The karaage on the dinner set tasted like it was refried in old oil. The salad was drenched in dressing and miso soup, mackerel, and katsu were anything but average.
The ramen is so basic and unappetizing that I would prefer a package of instant ramen over what was presented in front of me. I tried the spicy tonkotsu ramen, which came out with VERY LITTLE broth so I asked if more broth could be added only to find out it would be an additional $ 3. Really, $ 3 for soup that should already be in a ramen bowl? This bowl also had a grip load of bean sprouts (half my bowl to be exact) and there was next to no flavor. If I had to compare, I would say it tasted like chicken broth from a can.
TLDR: SAVE YOUR TIME AND MONEY AND JUST WAIT FOR ANOTHER RESTAURANT

When I saw pictures of Maruya’s chashu ramen I knew I had to try it. The restaurant is located inside of the Japanese Village Plaza. I came in on a Saturday night and this was one of the few restaurants that wasn’t so crowded. We were seated immediately. Despite the fact that restaurant is quite small, they have plenty of seating areas.
FOOD:
I ordered the chashu ramen ($ 14) — such a good price for the amount of meat and noodles you get. We shared the karage as an appetizer and my boyfriend got the spicy miso ramen with a salmon don. The server was in shock when I ordered the chashu ramen saying, «It’s huge…» Little does she know that my stomach is basically a bottomless pit lol.
When my chashu ramen was presented to the table I was in a shock. There was literally chashu throughout the entire bowl… The broth was a bright orange color but it wasn’t even spicy. It was actually bland. so bland that I had to ask the server to bring me hot sauce to give it some more flavor. The amount of meat was not comparable to the amount of noodles/​broth I had. It was seriously a mission to finish but the mission was completed! I’m actually proud of myself; however, this wasn’t the best ramen I’ve had. Noodles weren’t that great and the broth was lacking flavor and depth.
The chicken karage was average. Not as crispy as I’d like and the sauce that it was accompanied with was strange. It had like a mustard aftertaste?
SERVICE:
Very fast. I was amazed how quickly our food was brought out to the table.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Maruya… how’d ya know I like meaty .raw.men. im 100% JKing… I honestly don’t know what I’m saying. ANYWAY. Their whole bowl surrounded by chashu (super meaty, i like). Picture worthy AND delicious. Double the BOOYA.
I came with 3 of my guy friends. As soon as the waitress came, i exclaimed, «4 Chashu Ramen». My friends didnt even get to look at the menu. LOL I was definitely overly confident that we would finish 4 humongous bowls of meaty noodley ramen. OOOPPPSS…
Chashu ramen (pork bone broth) $ 13.95: Ramen encompassed by mouth watering pork chashu with boiled egg, bean sprouts, nori, scallion, and a splash of spicy sauce. They use artisan noodles and soups made from scratch everyday. I was expecting it to not taste that great because I assumed the better it looks, the less delicious it would taste. I was WRONG. SO good. So perfect. My only complaint would be that the meat were more fatty than actual pork meat. Other than that, i was in heaven. BIG portion for such a good price, $ 14 would get me half the size in SF with 2 puny slices of chashu.
Located inside the Japanese Village Plaza, I expected a long wait. Came on a Saturday at 1:30pm-sih. Wait time was 15 – 25 minutes. Service was pretty friendly. It took about 15 minutes to get our ramen.

3.5 stars.
We came here on a Saturday for lunch, and were very satisfied with the out come. The food here was pretty solid. We came right when it open and there were aready a line to get in. Once in we were seated right away.
SERVICE:
The service was excellent and attentive. Never once that we had called for anything.
FOOD:
Teriyaki Eel Don: This was excellent. Huge cut of Unagi served over rice. If you like unagi nigiri you well definitely love this dish.
Grilled Yellowtail Kama combo: What a deal on this lunch combo. This combo came with shrimp and vegetables tempura which was perfectly cook, egg roll, 3 pcs of chicken karaage, miso soup, a side of salad, and of course the hamachi kama which was grilled to perfection. Super moist and meaty.
Tonkotsu Ramen: This was pretty good. The flavor of the broth was flavorful, but I wish the broth could of been more rich and buttery. The ramen noodles was cook perfectly, and the pork chashu was nice and tender.
Overall a good place to grab a bit to eat.

We came here to eat Ramen because the other place that we wanted to go to had an hour wait and we were hungry. We got the Tsuke Men and one soba noodles with hot broth. The Tsuke men was ok, the noodles were great, very aldente and chewy. the broth was ok nothing great and not spicy at all.
The soba’s broth was tasty not great but good. The soba noodles on the other hand weren’t not good! wayyy overcooked, they felt stale.
The Octopus appetizer though was good…
We should’ve waited for the other ramen place…

Surprisingly this place was still busy after the lunch rush. It was about 3:30pm on a Saturday. Luckily, they were able to seat us right away.
My sister ordered the Chasu Ramen Bowl ($ 13.95). Man, they do NOT skimp on the pork! Usually I’m able to finish off the pork pieces in ramen, but neither of us could finish the whole thing. It’s a lot of meat. She also ordered california rolls and edamame. I think she thought the portions were going to be a lot smaller than they were. She finished half of her ramen and packed the rest to-​go.
I ordered the Out of Control roll (13.95). Simple and good. Total came out to roughly $ 50 after tax and tip for the two of us. It was a lot of food.
I would recommend and would come back! =)

I’ve been craving some good tonkatsu, Japanese deep fried pork, since I came back from Japan. It’s hard to find good tonkatsu in America.
Maruya was so good I had lunch here twice in one week!
Food:
I ordered the tonkatsu lunch that came with miso soup, salad, tempura, rice, egg roll, popcorn chicken, and pickled radish.
For around $ 14, that’s a lot of food.
The tonkatsu is almost on par with what I had in Japan; fried crispy, but not greasy.
Side Notes
Ambiance:
There’s a lot of seating during lunch.
Service:
Staff was friendly and didn’t mind splitting our table’s bill for everybody.
Overall:
I highly recommend the tonkatsu!

Chasu lovers — come here! What made me come here was their Chasu Ramen Bowl that looked pretty amazing and original. The bowl is literally covered with Chasu on the edges and at the bottom. The ramen is under all that Chasu! The Chasu is fatty and sliced thinly so it melts in your mouth. The broth itself was pretty rich with a slight kick and the noddles were tasty was well. After eating all that Chasu I felt a bit sick probably because of all the fattiness but it was oh so good!
My GF ordered the Tsukemen ramen. The broth was good but it was too soupy and not as rich. We are used to Tsujitas amazingly flavorful and rich broth. It was okay though.
I wouldn’t mind coming here if I don’t feel like driving to Tsujita or if other ramen spots are crowded.

I’m a bit torn as to how to rate this place – probably a 3.5, but I obviously can’t do that on Unilocal so I’m leaning towards a 3. I came here on a weekday with a friend and it was super quiet. I got the spicy tonkatsu ramen while he got the big chashu ramen. The chashu was pretty on point for they were cut very thinly and each bite had a good amount of fattiness. The noodles were medium thick so that was pretty good. The broth also wasn’t very fatty, it was a bit more diluted than ramen places like Santouka and Tsujita.
Overall, I would come back again, but it’s not a place I would crave.

Overwhelmed with all the good eats in Little Tokyo, we decided to pick this spot since there wasn’t too long of a wait compared to the other Ramen places. My battery was low on my phone so I didn’t have Unilocal to guide us. I was pleasantly surprised that this place was so good!
I ordered the lunch Tonkatsu Ramen with the Salmon Sashimi Don on the side. The pork in the Tonkatsu Ramen was tender and fatty, broth was rich and flavorful. The Sashimi Don just melted in my mouth like butter. .. orgasm in my mouth, seriously it was hella good.
Service was friendly and price was reasonable. They also validate 2hrs of parking if you parked in the Japanese Village Plaza parking lot.
Overall, great first visit. Can’t wait to go back!