This hot Bay Area ramen spot had a 2-hour wait on opening day. Is it worth the hype?
Tsujita recently opened its first Bay Area outpost in West San Jose's Strawberry Park shopping plaza, a hot spot for Japanese food with several restaurants and the grocery store Mitsuwa Marketplace. On its grand opening weekend, the wait time was more than two hours.
I haven't been to the Los Angeles restaurant in years, so I wondered if the new location would live up to my memory. It only took one bite to know the answer: yes. I'd put Tsujita in my top ramen spots in the Bay Area, especially since great tsukemen is in short supply here. It's a leading source for the ramen style, second only to Shutgetsu, which has locations in San Mateo and Fremont.
On my dinner visit, I faced a line of nearly 50 people hugging the perimeter of a courtyard. I waited over a half hour before making it inside the snug shop awash in honey blonde wood. It was a packed house, with all 30 seats occupied by patrons noshing on jumbo chicken karaage or gleefully slurping down noodles.
I ordered the deluxe tsukemen ($25.60). It came with two bowls: a cold one filled with a nest of yellow noodles, a lime wedge and a double helping of buttery braised pork slices; and another containing the warm dipping liquid. The latter was as potent as I remembered. A swirl of pork fat floated atop the murky brown broth, an intense distillation of richness, smokiness and umami with a fishy edge.
How to eat tsukemen? Dunk the elongated noodles in the concentrated fluid and inhale them down the gullet. The lime provides flavor variance, a few drops over the noodles nicely mellows the reduced soup's intensity. Once you've reached the dregs, ask the staff to thin it out with complimentary chicken broth.
While dipping ramen remains the draw, the tonkotsu, especially the spicy version ($18.95), is a wonderful alternative. The milky white pork broth is decadent, the noodles slightly firm and the heat level prickly but quick to dissipate.
Tsujita debuted in 2003 in Tokyo before opening its first Los Angeles location in 2011. In the last decade, the operation has expanded to Texas, New Jersey and, now, San Jose. In its growth, the international ramen chain has maintained quality. While I think Tsujita is well worth the wait, line adverse patrons might want to wait a few weeks before visiting.
There was one inconsequential detail that was absent on my visit: the pungent odor of long-simmered pork bones, which I associate with the initial Los Angeles location. I can't say I miss the scent, per se, but I affectionately view it as the perfume of Tsujita. Perhaps the smell is earned over time as it slowly settles into the walls.
Tsujita Artisan Noodle. 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 5-9 p.m Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. 4330 Moorpark Ave., San Jose. tsujita.com/san-jose-ca-1
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
15 hours ago
Japan deploys its first F-35B fighter jets to bolster defenses in the south
TOKYO -- TOKYO (AP) — Japan's first three F-35B stealth fighter jets arrived Thursday at an air base in the south of the country, its latest move to fortify defenses as tensions in the region grow. The new arrivals are three of the four F-35Bs scheduled for deployment at the Nyutabaru Air Base in the Miyazaki prefecture. The fourth jet is set to arrive at a later date, the Air Self-Defense Force said. The jets, which have short take-off and vertical landing functions, are to operate from two Japanese helicopter carriers, the Izumo and the Kaga, that were modified to accommodate the F-35B. The Defense Ministry has said four more F-35Bs will be delivered to Nyutabaru by the end of March 2026. Japan considers China as a regional threat and has accelerated its military buildup on remote islands in the southwest. Separately on Thursday, a F-2A single-seater fighter jet crashed in the Pacific off Japan's eastern coast during a training flight, but the pilot was rescued alive after he ejected himself in an emergency, according to the ASDF. It said that training flights for the aircraft have been suspended for safety checks. Japan is currently constructing a runway on a new air base on the island of Mageshima, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of the Nyutabaru base, for F-35B flight exercises. However, the drills will have to be conducted at Nyutabaru until around 2030 due to construction delays, triggering protests from local residents concerned about aircraft noise. Japan plans to deploy a total of 42 Lockheed Martin F-35Bs and 105 of the conventional take-off and landing, or CTOL, F-35As, making the country the biggest F-35 user outside of the United States.
San Francisco Chronicle
15 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Japan deploys its first F-35B fighter jets to bolster defenses in the south
TOKYO (AP) — Japan's first three F-35B stealth fighter jets arrived Thursday at an air base in the south of the country, its latest move to fortify defenses as tensions in the region grow. The new arrivals are three of the four F-35Bs scheduled for deployment at the Nyutabaru Air Base in the Miyazaki prefecture. The fourth jet is set to arrive at a later date, the Air Self-Defense Force said. The jets, which have short take-off and vertical landing functions, are to operate from two Japanese helicopter carriers, the Izumo and the Kaga, that were modified to accommodate the F-35B. The Defense Ministry has said four more F-35Bs will be delivered to Nyutabaru by the end of March 2026. Japan considers China as a regional threat and has accelerated its military buildup on remote islands in the southwest. Separately on Thursday, a F-2A single-seater fighter jet crashed in the Pacific off Japan's eastern coast during a training flight, but the pilot was rescued alive after he ejected himself in an emergency, according to the ASDF. It said that training flights for the aircraft have been suspended for safety checks. Japan is currently constructing a runway on a new air base on the island of Mageshima, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of the Nyutabaru base, for F-35B flight exercises. However, the drills will have to be conducted at Nyutabaru until around 2030 due to construction delays, triggering protests from local residents concerned about aircraft noise.
Time Magazine
15 hours ago
- Time Magazine
The Letters My Grandmother Received From Auschwitz
Every year at our family Seder, my dad would pull down a small cedar box from the closet shelf. He'd carry it to the table and lift the lid, releasing the scent of spicy red cedar into the room. Inside were letters, postcards stacked and yellowed with history, written in careful French. At the top corner of each letter: a deep red stamp bearing the profile of Adolf Hitler. 'These were written by my grandfather to my mother,' he would say, 'from Auschwitz.' Then he'd issue his annual warning: 'Every few decades, this happens to the Jews. So always be looking out. Have eyes in the back of your head.' I thought it sounded paranoid. I had never known anything close to antisemitism growing up in Northern California. I wasn't exactly sure what the message these letters held, but they spoke to me. Letter from Avram to Danielle, 1944. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Michel Snegg It was when I turned 40, as I was about to become a father myself, that I felt compelled–by ancestors, by spirit, by responsibility, by the muses–to understand the letters, written both to my grandmother and to the friends looking after her, and to find the story that lived inside their words. My grandmother Fernande Halerie was born in Paris in 1923 to Romanian Jewish immigrants. Her parents, Avram and Marguerite, were sharply dressed tailors. Avram was an amateur poet and her older brother David played the banjo. She loved to roller-skate through the boulevards with her friends. They lived in the bustling 24th arrondissement, part of a thriving immigrant community. Marguerite and Avram circa 1920-1940 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Michel Snegg In 1942, when Fernande was 16, her parents were arrested. They were sent through the Drancy transit camp and loaded onto a cattle car to Auschwitz. The first letter in our collection begins, 'Dear Friends, My wife and I are in a cattle car with no air and no light destined for Poland. I hope that everything is going well at your home with regard to Fernande. Do all that's possible to care for her and keep her at Monique's home. Be brave and we will see you soon.' Slipped through a slot in the cattle car, it arrived days later. Fernande wanted to go with them, but because she was French-born, she wasn't on the list to be deported. They told her to stay behind. So she did. And through the strength, ingenuity, and power of love, she survived. The letters began to arrive from a place called Blechhammer, a forced labor camp in southern Poland, a subcamp of Auschwitz. It turns out my great-grandfather Avram had been pulled from the train with 154 other able-bodied men at the Cosel rail junction. While his wife went on to Auschwitz and was almost certainly gassed upon arrival, Avram was sent as labor to build synthetic-fuel plants for the Nazi war machine. Thanks to his sociable personality, he got a job working at the infirmary away from the hard grind of the plant. He built a black-market network inside the camp, bartering supplies, sewing clothing, and maintaining lines of communication with the outside. He relied on Fernande, his teenage daughter, to move around occupied Paris and gather the packages—food, thread, medicine, perfume—that he needed to stay alive. During the week, Fernande lived alone in the family's Paris apartment under a false name: Danielle Deschampe. The ID card lives in our collection still. On weekends, she stayed with the Pliez family, Catholics who risked their lives to protect her. Their daughter Monique was the same age. They would go to Mass together on Sundays. On Rosh Hashanah of 1944, Fernande met a young American Jewish soldier named David Snegg at the Grand Synagogue in Paris. He didn't speak French and she didn't speak English, but they fell in love. Their romance played out over 120 letters—adorned with lipstick kisses and hand-drawn hearts. 'I kiss your picture so much I'm afraid I'll wear it out,' he wrote. Over 120 letters were sent between Danielle and David. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Michel Snegg Meanwhile, Avram's letters slowed and then stopped. Fernande waited anxiously. She knew Blechhammer had been liberated. She watched other neighbors return. Still, no word. It turns out Avram had survived not only Blechhammer but a two-week death march through the German winter. He passed through Gross-Rosen, then Buchenwald, and finally arrived at Ohrdruf, a subcamp where they were building a grand underground bunker system to hide the Fuhrer. There, Avram's number was recorded on an infirmary card, just days before American troops liberated the camp. Ohrdruf was the first Nazi camp encountered by General Eisenhower. When he saw it, he summoned the press. 'I made the visit deliberately,' he wrote, 'in order to be in a position to give firsthand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to propaganda.' Avram didn't make it. As the Americans approached, SS guards lined up the prisoners and opened fire. Some survived by falling to the ground. But he was killed. His best friend survived and found Fernande in the apartment in Paris. With him, he carried her father's last words: 'Tell Fernande I love her with all my heart.' Soon after, Fernande and David, with a toddler in tow, said goodbye to the Pliez family and the Parisian community that had helped her survive. They set sail for a new life in Los Angeles. My father was conceived in a Pullman car somewhere between New York and California. Going by her new name, Danielle, she lived in Pasadena and raised two boys. One day, she accompanied a friend to the studio lot of her favorite radio show, Queen for a Day , a game-show-style program where women shared personal stories before a live audience. Whoever told the 'saddest' story, and got the loudest applause, was crowned Queen for a Day. The Queen was granted a special wish and received prizes like a new washer-dryer. My grandmother was chosen to take the stage. When she told her story, the applause-o-meter hit the red and she was crowned Queen for a Day. Her wish? To find out what happened to her parents and brother. The show could not provide her with all the answers, but it did find her father's brother who now lived in Memphis and they became close. She also won a beautiful new patio set. Danielle (second from left) winning Queen for a Day. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Michel Snegg Over the years my father attended to the collection of letters. He had them carefully translated by an expert and had intended to donate them to the Shoah museum in Paris. But when he showed the collection to a curator at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on a trip to Washington, D.C., with his grandchildren, she stopped him. 'This is the largest collection of uncensored letters I've ever seen,' she told him. 'You can't walk out of here with these.' The letters are now safely held at the USHMM, beautifully presented online and available for future generations. My grandmother's story joins the millions of others, from the darkness of a closet shelf into the healing light of remembrance. Now I'm continuing the work. As an artist I set out to dive deep into the letters and embark on a journey of understanding. A path filled with questions. What were the causes and conditions that these letters needed to be written in the first place? How was it that they were able to send and receive packages in a black-market operation? What happened to Avram? What was it like for a 16-year-old girl to be alone in Paris? As I look for the throughlines, the patterns, the arc, the symbols, and the story, what strikes me most is the power and intimacy of a letter, words on a page that cut through time and space, voices perfectly preserved. The horror of the Holocaust is undeniable, but the letters share a message not of paranoia or fear but of hope and courage. They serve as a reminder that life and love triumph over darkness and evil, that a seed, carried far on the winds and currents of history, can find conditions to flourish. Avram didn't survive. But through the deep love between a father and daughter, our family did. Because of that love, I'm here to write these words, to live a life in freedom, and to raise a beautiful son and a daughter of my own.
