AREAA's Noodle Town "Little Osaka"

Today is the launch of AREAA's show "Noodle Town". On the first episode, I introduce Jim Park to Sawtelle Blvd, the only Asian district in all of West LA. That's convenient for me as I live in Westwood and between the 10 fwy and LA traffic, it's not ideal for me to travel to San Gabriel or even Downtown LA whenever I am craving some good ramen, korean bbq or shaved ice.

We start off at Tsujita-LA, the most popular Ramen joint, with a fatty delicious pork broth they brew for over 60 hours. There's an art in savoring this bowl of noodles which you'll see. Next up, we visit Bar Hayama, a higher-end sushi restaurant & bar with a gorgeous large fire pit in the outdoor patio, and a cozy indoor seating where we had some Sake-bombs (who knows if that's even traditionally Japanese!). No visit to an Asian town can conclude without dessert, so we visited Blockheads for some Taiwanese Shaved ice. To our surprise, the winner of Foodtruck LA "Seoul Sausage" had just opened up next to us with the owner giving a little insight on why he chose Sawtelle to open his store!

Along the way in our gluttonous excursion, we stumbled across a few nurseries that was hard to miss. We met a lady who shared with us the story of how her father owned the nursery & botanical gardens back in the 1930's. Shortly after, during the Japanese-American internment camps, the US took away their land but many Japanese-Americans were able to claim it back after. I can imagine how important it is for this lady to hold on to this generational gem.

Enjoy "Little Osaka"!