A previous post covered that there was more than ramen at Shalala with some izakaya-style small dishes to eat with beer. Now that it’s winter and colder in the Bay Area, it’s time to go there for ramen noodles.

As fried chicken fiends, we always get an order of their excellent karaage when we come to Shalala:

We also got an order of their onigiri which in this case is deep fried, rather than grilled, which makes the rice deliciously crispy. Topped with tobiko (flying fish roe) and stuffed with shaved bonito flakes, the crunchy rice packet is full of flavor:

We always order their spicy miso ramen where the spice level is graded by the number of hot peppers. Based on their Hokkaido-style thick miso ramen, this is one of the newer styles served with chili in paste and thread forms. Topped with corn, scallions, cloud ear mushrooms, char-siu prok slices, sesame seeds, soft cooked egg and blackened garlic oil, the noodles with the thick broth is Japanese comfort food at its best. Normally served at pepper level 3, we always ask the kitchen to make it spicier and go all the way to pepper level 5:

We almost always drink beer when we are not slurping our ramen noodles:

Shalala also serves other types of ramen broth such as the more traditional shio (salt), shoyu (Soy) and non-spicy miso broths. Ramen bowl sizes can be ordered in small, medium or large sizes. Chef-Owner Nobu Iwahashi sources the ramen noodles that are made to his specification, and these noodles are spongy good:

Chef Iwahashi is now spending most of his time making sure Kotetsu Ramen in Santa Clara gets up and running. You can occasionally catch him at Shalala late Friday and Saturday nights after Kotetsu closes. The kitchen and staff at Shalala are well-trained in providing great ramen and izakaya plates.

http://www.ramenshalala.com/index.html

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