Dish Spotlight: Spicy Sesame Ramen at Tajima

A rainy day in a bowl.

Has it really been four months since I've been to a Tajima? It's a fixture of San Diego's landscape now, with so many locations that you'd practically think they were Starbucks.

The North Park location was bustling even on a Thursday afternoon. It started to pour shortly after I got in, as if the weather were anticipating my meal. Shortly after being seated, I got what I always get: the spicy sesame tonkotsu ramen with added pork chashu.

This is not a bowl designed for everyday eating. The broth is so creamy and rich, it almost makes you feel guilty. It's piled with so many toppings you have to work to break through to the noodles. It's packed with so much sodium you'll have to swear off salt for a week.

And still, it's all so worth it.

Every ingredient is beautifully calibrated. Pork bones are boiled for twelve straight hours and combined with sesame and chile to create a broth that's spicy, unctuous and satisfying. The noodles are delicate but still retain a robust springiness. The half egg is always cooked medium—never too runny or too solid. The garlic chips are crunchy but never burnt-tasting, as they often are elsewhere. Now and then the occasional note of toasted sesame shines through. The ground pork is savory, heavy on salt but not overwhelmingly. There are just enough veggies to trick your brain into thinking there's some nutritional value here: Buttery bok choy, ocean-infused nori, crisp green onion, lightly bitter sprouts.

And then there's the chashu. Theoretically, it's an optional add-on, but in practice it's an absolute requirement. Pork belly is the star of many a ramen bowl, but this incarnation is just unreal. It offers no resistance as you bite in. Time stops. The world falls away. And you're left with only the dark, deep, rich, meaty, golden caramelized flavor.

When you combine all these ingredients, you have the perfect meal to brood over on a cold, dark day. You can listen to the rain patter on the roof as you let the warmth flow through your body, banishing the chill from your toes. Just sit, relax, and eat your fill. This is a big bowl, so there's no shame in getting a to-go container—chances are, you'll be keen to savor every drop.

Score: 9 out of 10 (Fantastic)

Dish Spotlight: Carne Cruda Asada at Juniper & Ivy

Little Italy's Juniper & Ivy is one of my favorite restaurants in the city. It ticks a lot of boxes for me: A wide array of unique small plates, a great cocktail list, an inventive menu that changes throughout the year—and most importantly, a few permanent menu items that are among my favorite dishes, period. One of those is the carne cruda asada.

Not-so-quick aside: Leading up to our recent visit, I'd planned to profile a different one of their mainstays, the incredible yodel cake. Its wild combination of textures (crunch! powder! ice cream!) and flavors (coffee! chocolate! strawberry!) mingle and combine in wonderful ways. It's a perfect dessert... but on our visit they'd ruined it, tampering with the flavor profile to create a far-inferior apple and matcha version. When we told the waiter as much, he confided: "You're preaching to the choir." Turns out much of the staff is lobbying to get the original back. Fingers crossed!

Now, back to the topic at hand.

The carne cruda asada has no right be as good as it is—not with ingredients that are so seemingly simple. It's just toast stacked with steak tartare, jalapeño, cotija cheese, quail egg and scallion, sliced into four pieces for sharing. And yet...

Flashback: The year is 2014. We're visiting J&I for the first time, soon after its grand opening, and I spot an odd and intriguing tartare toast on the menu. We order. I grab a slice. The toast is thick-cut, hardy enough to support a huge helping of tartare, so tender it's creamy, infused with jalapeño heat. The adorably tiny sunny-side-up quail eggs amplify that luscious texture. It's like the perfect savory breakfast, but I'm having it for dinner. A smattering of scallions and hint of lime and provide the springiness needed to lighten the heavy steak-and-eggs combo. And finally, the cotija supplies the critical salt element that unites the rest into a Mexican-influenced masterpiece. Months after this first encounter, I continue to think back on it longingly.

Here in 2018, the cruda asada is still one of the best dishes in San Diego. No outrageous flavors, just subtle, hearty and satisfying. It's the first dish to make me really love steak tartare, the kind of dish where every ingredient has an essential role to play. A true instant classic—let's just hope they don't go adding apples and matcha powder.

Dish Spotlight: Rub My Belly at Good Time Poke

Some places have one dish that stands out among the rest—not because the other menu items are bad, but because this one thing is so good that it feels like a betrayal to get anything else. For Good Time Poke in Pacific Beach, that dish is the Rub My Belly.

The $14 Rub My Belly bowl is probably my favorite poke in San Diego, though it arguably isn't technically poke at all. It consists of a bed of white rice topped with torched salmon belly—no shoyu marinade here—and a variety of veggies and toppings. (I always add jalapeño for some extra heat.)

Not one ingredient feels out of place in this bowl. The salmon belly is luscious: It's tender and raw on one side, the lightest of sears on the other, creating a mouthwatering contrast of textures. The nori is salty, rough and crisp, and brings with it that classic essence of the sea. The greenery of the avocado, scallions and jalapeño make the dish feel fresh and light without taking too much focus off the fish. The real chopped wasabi feels like an indulgence—it tastes brighter and sharper than the usual green-dyed horseradish. The tosazu (Japanese bonito rice vinegar) is slightly tangy mixed with a touch of soy sauce.

This bowl has become a favorite in my family over the past couple of years. My dad has said more than once that it might actually be his favorite thing to eat, period. I won't go that far, but I love how any single bite is guaranteed to have a melange of three or four delicious elements that play perfectly together. The salmon, nori and vinegared rice coalesce into a symphony of flavor. Occasionally the wasabi lightly burns my nose, and I chuckle at my miscalculation in assembling the perfect bite.

The Rub My Belly feels like a San Diego summer. You could grab a bowl to go, walk three blocks to the ocean and eat it beachside under an umbrella. You could even pretend you just caught the fish yourself from the pier—it tastes fresh enough, after all. You could finish every precious morsel (feeling full yet wishing there'd been just a little more), then walk to the water and let the cold waves wash over your feet.

What am I trying to say here? Well... the best food doesn't feel like it's limited to a dining table. It feels like part of life. It brings people together. The best food makes memories.