Misoya - Santa Clara

Spicy Tokyo style ramen

One Saturday afternoon I was supposed to meet a friend at Orenchi for lunch. When I got there I could see from the parking lot the amount of people waiting outside the restaurant. I quickly found a parking spot and went to put a name on the wait list in the restaurant. I saw the names and guessed at least 30 over people in front of me.

So when my friend arrived we decided to walk to Misoya instead which was just on the other side of Homestead Road. Different from Orenchi, there was no line at all at Misoya. We pretty much walked in and got seating at the bar.

spicy gyoza

I ordered a spicy Tokyo ramen and my friend ordered seafood ramen with tempura prawn. We shared a spicy gyoza for appetizer. It didn't take that long before our orders arrived. My spicy ramen came with a dollop of red paste on top along with a sheet of nori sticking out of the bowl. I stirred up the red paste. Just before everything got blended, I decided to taste the red paste. It's not chili paste. The paste tasted like red soy bean paste (miso) and it wasn't spicy at all. And because the bean paste was salty, my whole bowl of ramen was so so salty that I couldn't even enjoy the broth.

My ramen was such a disappointment. The broth was too salty. The minced meat was so little I couldn't really taste them. In fact, if I gathered all the minced meat in my bowl there were hardly two table spoonful. There were a few tiny clams in the broth but I didn't really care for them. I didn't think the clams add any flavor to the broth. The gyoza were okay and not too special.

It would be a long time before I ever go back to this ramen joint.

Misoya
3541 Homestead Rd, Santa Clara, CA 95051
(408) 615-7888