Kotohira - Gardena

My hospital feeds us while we work, and for the resident swimming in debt and drowning in loans, three free meals a day is a pretty sweet deal. I'm hardly one to complain about an added bonus, but nearly two years of intermittently exclaiming "Wow, that was really edible!" has made me a little less enthusiastic about cafeteria food...until I went to Kotohira.

Kotohira is a Japanese cafeteria-food restaurant, dishing up culturally classic staples while hiding in a small strip mall in Gardena. Their ingredients are basic, their prep is simple, and the food even comes on a lacquered tray, but I get the feeling I could eat here every day and not get bored.

The hospital cafeteria specializes in various amorphously-textured blocks of firm tofu in some sort of very strong sauce. Be it curry, pineapple, or jerk, it's only a matter of time before every crumbly bite starts to taste the same. Kotohira serves tofu too, but the Agedashi Tofu, a simple staple with crispy, chewy skin covering melty silken-ness, soaking in a light, shoyu-ish broth adds dimension by mixing textures with the flavor.

The one decent thing the hospital cafeteria serves is fried chicken. The chicken stays moist inside the breading, which is very acceptably seasoned. The Japanese have their own version of fried chicken, and Kotohira’s Chicken Katsudon comes with chunks of dark meat aren't just coated with a little spice. The sauce seeps all the way through the marbling mix of meat and egg over rice. All that chicken gets me pretty thirsty, but I’ve never been a huge fan of tea. Fortunately, the Mini Katsudon Combination comes with Tanuki Udon, a light broth with thick, carb-y noodles, topped with chewy fish cakes and a lattice of tempura lace.

The one thing the hospital cafeteria makes consistently well is the soup. The lentils are hearty, and the chicken tortilla soup has a detectable southwestern spice. But it's hard to appreciate cafeteria soup when we’re surrounded by the authentic ramen of Torrance.  My ramen consumption is starting to reach overdose status, and the Pork Udon, a sparser, thick-noodled, Tanuki-esque-but-heavier soup was a brief breather after years of thick, fat-droplet-filled tonkotsu.  

I’ve spent a lot of time savoring the best offerings of the South Bay’s Japanese population so it’s no surprise I’m not always content to savor my sad chicken or enhance my soggy enchilada with pickled jalapeño at work. But I had accepted that cafeteria food could only be so good, so I figured I could at least watch my savings account grow with every bite. Now thanks to a hole-in-the-wall in Gardena, I see just how much better it could be, and every time I'm hungry at work I have to go to Gardena or starve.