. "0"^^ . "0"^^ . "4"^^ . . "2015-01-28T00:00:00"^^ . . "It seems like there's a new ramen place keep popping up in Vegas lately. \"Ramen Tatsu\" has been around for about couple of years now, and my recent visit was my first time there. I had a Japanese buddy of mine from San Francisco Bay Area visiting during the CES convention, and we usually go to a ramen place at least once during his visit. This time we went to Tatsu and we were very pleased. My buddy's name is \"Tetsu\" so, I remembered to go to \"Tatsu.\"\n\nWe started with some beer and chicken kara-age (Japanese style chicken nuggets) and some pot stickers. The pot stickers were good, but, no different than any other good ramen places. I can probably pan fry those pot stickers a little better than they can. Kara-age was crispy outside and moist inside. Perfect! That shows me they're very good in deep frying.\n\nThen we ordered our main. My buddy ordered the \"Tsukemen\" It's a thick ramen that almost look like udon noodles which comes with two types of dipping sauce. I'm not much of a fan of eating ramen dipping it in a sauce. I'd rather do that with a cold udon or soba. However, those dipping sauces were delicious. I ordered the Deluxe ramen that comes with extra slices of cha-shu. I can tell the cha-shu is home made, and sliced thicker than you usually see at a ramen place. Those cha-shu were very tender and flavorful with not too much fat. The noodle was firm and very well done, the way I like it. Toppings were similar to the stuff I use when I make my own ramen, so, not surprised there. Tonkotsu-Shoyu (Soy sauce based pork broth) soup was also, excellent. Very rich broth, not oily, nor salty. Very authentic Japanese ramen soup. Tonkotsu-Shoyu ramen originated in Yokoyama (Kanagawa Prefecture) and, has been popular in the Kanto region (Seven eastern prefectures including Tokyo). Tonkotsu (pork bone) ramen is basically, a traditional ramen in Kyushu. It's like a mixture of both, Shoyu ramen of Kanto with tonkotsu ramen of Kyushu. Tonkotsu-Shoyu ramen noodles are the regular curly ramen noodles rather than the straight thin type normally used in the Kyushu or \"Hakata style\" ramen.\n\nOn the scale of 1 to 10, I would give this ramen a 9. It would've been a 10 if the cha-shu was properly seared on the outside. The word \"cha-\" of \"cha-shu\" comes from the Chinese \"chaasiu\" or \"char siu\" which means \"barbequed\" or \"seared\" pork. Obviously, ramen was invented by a Chinese cook in Japan, unclear of when, but, some historians say about 350 years ago; hence it uses the naming from Chinese words, and uses both Chinese and Japanese style of cooking. At least I know it's been around for more than a century, and became popular in the 1950s.\n\nNow I've got a place to go for Tonkotsu-Shoyu ramen!"^^ . "0"^^ .