San Sui Tei

People of yelp,

This is my new secret favorite spot in Little Tokyo. The food is amazing, the price is worth it, and the portion is incredible. The deals are crazy good on the weekdays. They have a weekday special on the menu. The bento box is huge that brings your choice of meat, rice, salad, and other items.
The veggie rolls are the best rolls I have ever tasted and the sauce is so flavorful. The veggies are crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside.

The drinks are also buy one get one free on weekdays. The staff is so friendly and talk to you in a sweet voice. They have ramen, soups, bento boxes, bowls, sushi. I am coming here almost like 2-3 times a week!

Okay so we're regulars at the San Sui Tei in El Monte. After looking at the ratings for this one in Little Tokyo, we thought the quality would be similar but we were wrong.

Like the San Sui Tei in El Monte, you can substitute the ramen noodles with udon. You can also get the ramen in a hot pot. If you show them your check in on Yelp, you can get a free California roll. My bf and I both got the ramen and substituted the ramen with the udon. We were not impressed. The ramens were mediocre. The California roll was also mediocre.

We should've trusted our instinct and left when we walked in and saw that the entire restaurant was empty during dinner time. We're just going to stick with the San Sui Tei in El Monte from now on.

Wow bad couple of days for me. Two one-star experiences in a row. Geez.

Ok so why give a restaurant a 1 star review:
1. Cleanliness
2. Service
3. Food

In that order.

So presuming that I want to give 5 star reviews that make people laugh and also make them hungry, let's start with 5 stars and see how we ended up with 1 for this little spot tucked away in little Tokyo.

1. Cleanliness: oh, I dunno but the COCKROACHES running around the table/wall is probably a big one (pictures included). - I can excuse a fly buzzing around maybe, but roaches are a "no" right away. Had I spotted him earlier I would have left right away.
The place had a "old mopwater" smell to it. Not great but not awful for a restaurant I suppose. Combined with the cockroach experience though, yeah I'll pass.

2. Service: ordered an iced tea with my meal. What came was an overly sweetened boba-shop style sugar bomb. Ok my fault I should have asked for a plain unsweetened tea. I asked if thy had any and the waitress said "next time." No water or anything just a (paraphrase: "yeah buddy try something else next time.")
C'mon maaaannn.
Nobody stopped by to see how the food was, I had to flag one down to ask about the tea.

3. Food: tasted great until I saw the cockroach and then I lost my appetite.

4. Marketing: you may notice on your Yelp check in they are offering 20% off. Hell yeah I'll take that! Then when you go to redeem it the fine print shows up.... yeah it's good for dinner only. Dammit that's WHY I came in here today so I could treat my friend to lunch and feel like I'm a savvy lunch-time fat kid who knows the good spots to grab a bite.

Cost for two people at lunch was $33.00.
We had the lunch special bento box, that sugar tea thing I didn't drink, and an order of gyoza, a coke, and the chicken ramen. Don't get me wrong I don't mind paying for good food, but this is a little steep for a lunch, especially with cockroaches at the table, grumble grumble gripe.

Will I return? No. there are cheaper, cleaner places with better service in little Tokyo and downtown even.
Won't come, not even to use my 20% coupon that is good for dinner only.

I had 30 minutes to grab a quick bite in Little Tokyo before going back to work. I had no time to do my 10-minute-Yelp search , but I jumped into the next ramen place I saw that wasn't packed.

Luckily it wasn't busy, so I sat down, threw down my order for stewed pork ramen, and my food came soon after. First, their portion size was nice--I was happily full after. The broth was good, but wasn't as full as it looks. The wavy noodles were great and picked up a lot of the broth. The stewed pork was actually really good but not the most tender I've had. The eggs weren't perfectly soft-boiled (which I don't care as much, but I know others have strong opinions out there).

I slurped my bowl down and made it back to work in time--just with a few splatters of broth here and there. Thanks for the quick lunch San Sui Tei.

Went here because we were looking for some cheap in the area that was good. The reviews weren't bad 'diamond in the rough' - so decided to try it.

California roll was below average, rice was way too soft.

Service was insanely slow, which was weird because it was mid day and they were super dead. Asked for check and the server forgot about us, took around 20 minutes.

Meat was good in the ramen but the noodles were just okay. Ordered stewed pork ramen.

Check in for a free roll.

Probably won't be coming back but glad I tried it?

Things have changed...

My, have things changed. The menu is different, none of the options I used to love are available. The service is still great and the owner is friendly -- I just don't know what happened to this place that they redid their menu. I understand there's lots of competition from other restaurants but this was seriously one of my favorite spots in Little Tokyo. Ever since I last came here (this has been over a year now?) I haven't returned. Which is a shame - I have so many great memories here. It was where my boyfriend and I had our first date. It's where we celebrated our anniversaries, birthdays... It's just not the same.

This has to be hands down the best ramen I have ever had!!! I've never had ramen in a hot pot before and I must say... Wow!! I didn't eat my ramen super fast as it was hot and it stayed hot to the very end and I enjoyed every minute. I ordered the salmon ramen, that was new for me. The broth was good, but felt the salmon was small and a little tough, but I still enjoyed it. The noodles we perfect and not over done. I went on Sunday and it was really busy. There was only one server and he did okay, but I think he could use some help. Also they had 2 for 1 beers which my husband loved.

We are definitely coming back!!

I came with a friend after work one day around 10:30 pm to grab a late dinner.

They have a late dinner special, so I ordered a donburi which was around $6, and my friend ordered a seafood rice dish (off their regular menu).

I'm not a fan of onions, so I asked for no onions. The waitress looked really surprised because onions are one of the main ingredients? Haha.. so she kindly asked if I wanted to substitute something else, and I said sure, and I ended up with cabbage instead.

The donburi was sweet and pretty tasty. My friend's rice dish which came with a gravy was not bad either!

So if you're ever looking for something simple and cheap, San Sui Tei is one of your options!

Its a nice restaurant with nice food if one does not mind little or no table service. When we walked in, and waited, we felt as if we must be invisible. No one came oner to greet us for at least 10 minutes. Finally a man, who was eating, got up and came over to us and asked "How many?" I assume he was the manager.

I have to break in and mention that the restaurant is in Little Tokyo on a street with many restaurants. All the other restaurants had very long lines to get in. This restaurant had no line and no one waiting inside for a table. Take that for what it's worth.

We were seated and the menu looked great. We both ordered ramen bowels which came at the right temperature and flavor. I ordered the beef ramen and it was very tasty and flavored perfectly. That being said, after the food arrived we never saw the waiter again. I mean NEVER again. No refills on water, no asking how our meals were. When we were finished I had to ask passing servers repeatedly for our bill. I probably asked at least 6 times and the bill finally came not by our waiter but my one of the servers. While I gave a decent tip I sort of wondered why a waiter who did a Houdini disappearance deserved a full tip (which I gave).

As we were leaving I again saw the (apparent) manager, siting and eating and paying no attention to the restaurant. This lack of service might be a reason why no one was waiting in line to eat.

2.5 stars-

We went here on a Sunday afternoon for a late lunch after the Cherry Blossom Festival, Daikokuya had an hour and a half wait. Upon entering the restaurant we felt a bit claustrophobic, even though there were very few people/tables. We got banished to the "children's corner" its a screen off table next to the kitchen. This venue is not adequate for parties larger than six.

This place has good pricing on lunch specials ranging from $7-14. The vegetable ramen was $8, a good serving size... about a portion and a half. Lots of vegetables, a bit oily and lack flavor. Just flavorless, it didn't taste like miso, didn't taste like vegetables... just nothing...

The ramen in the combination plates were just as flavorless. This is sad considering we went here just for ramen. For a place that calls itself a ramen bar, I would expect better ramen. =( The items that come with the combinations like teriyaki beef and rice, hand roll balanced out the lackluster ramen.

The California roll was not special, but it's a California roll so who gives a $h*t.

Tako-yaki wasn't as crunchy as if could have been, but better tasty.

Due to the locations where we were sitting, it seems as if the wait-staff was not attentive. Once we got our leftovers boxed up and plates cleared we still had to wait 15 minutes for the check.

Bonus: Free Tea and relatively clean establishment