Monta Ramen

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Even though I had eaten at a lot of places on this Vegas trip, most of them (Raku, Sweets Raku, Kabuto) just so happened to be located in the same plaza.  Monta Ramen is located just a couple doors down from Raku.  Not to be a spoiler to this post, but out of a pretty great lineup of restaurants in this plaza this was probably my least favorite meal of the trip.
Due to the multiple visits to this plaza, I had my eye on the huge lines every time I ate at a restaurant in this plaza so I knew I had to head out here before the restaurant opened to secure a spot in this tiny restaurant.  The line wasn't too bad.  Arriving 15 minutes before the restaurant opens will secure you a pretty good seat in the first seating.  Both the wait and the menu reminded me a lot of Los Angeles's Daikokuya (see post HERE). 

The kimchi fried rice only comes in one size.  Its a shareable size if you decide to eat ramen as well as a rice dish.  There are small bits of pickled vegetables amongst the mound of rice.  Its not really a Korean style kimchi fried rice as you can tell from the color (the korean style is more red in color from much more kimchi as well as a fried egg on top).  The kimchi taste is very light.   

The only other pork bowl I've had is the absolutely #1 fantastic one at Daikokuya so this one obviously pales in comparison.  If you've never had Daikokuya's version then this can make for a decent pork bowl, but side by side to Daikokuya's its missing the sweet sauce that ties it all together.  Also, there is a noticeably skimpy portion of meat in the bowl.

Even though the menu says that Monta offers miso, shoyu, and tokotsu ramen, they actually offer a spicy tonkotsu ramen as well as a kuro (black garlic) ramen.  I opted for the traditional tonkotsu ramen.  The bowl comes with noodles, bamboo shoots, 2 slices of pork, green onions, wood ear, but surprisingly no egg so obviously I had to add the egg to make a proper ramen bowl.  Another odd thing about this bowl is the noodles are really thin.  Almost like Chinese chow mein noodles found in won ton soup, which threw me off a bit.  While the broth does have a fatty pork flavor, it doesn't have that complexity of a good tonkotsu ramen broth.  Better than the most bowls in the San Francisco, but not in LA or the South Bay area. 

Address:                 Monta Ramen
                                5030 Spring Mountain Rd. Ste 6
                                Las Vegas, NV
 

Type:                      Japanese/ramen

Popular chomps:    tonkotsu ramen 
                                kimchi fried rice
                                pork bowl 

Chomp worthy:       nothing