It was just starting to warm up a bit after a 36 degree start to the day when I parked at White Star and ambled over to the Chow Yum Phat counter. Only my second visit to the market. The first was to visit Gov’t Taco and that was quite rewarding. More on that another time, but the nature of the place–order at the different counters, communal food court seating, encourages mix and match. Not necessarily food groups, because of the differences in timing, but I certainly could have stopped at Gov’t Taco for a Mexican coke before or after I ordered my Pork Phat Bao and June’s Veggie ramen from Chow Yum Phat. Both were as exotic tasting as they look. Crisp, bright flavors surrounded the pork belly in the perfectly executed bun. And the veggie ramen was both mild and very umami in orientation. I picked veggie over the other options both because I knew the pork belly would be plenty of work for my digestive tract and also because I wanted to maximize the mushrooms. Shiitake, woodear, and enoki. While we are talking enoki I have to interrupt this broadcast to pitch the smoked enoki nigiri at Umami Sushi on Burbank. A must if you’ve not yet tried it. Back to this ramen. The egg was perfection, perfectly soft boiled so that the yolk ranged from bright yellow and slightly runny through semi-soft orange to semi-firm sunny. I’m always a fan of green onion with my noodles and best for last these homemade noodles were delicious. Both taste and texture are outstanding. I will have to go back to try the other ramens they offer and the pho dumplings that I wanted to try but they had run out of. Like the rest of the menu, they are house made and apparently very popular and hard to keep stocked. I will definitely keep trying though. Haven’t tried MJ’s or Dat’z Italian Wood Fired Pizzas yet either, and Chow Yum Phat is opening a sushi/poke counter there soon as well. Parking isn’t bad and you can easily right turn, right turn away from Government onto Capital Heights then Acadian to catch the light if you need to head back downtown. Never try to turn left onto Government without a light. You will frustrate and embarrass yourself and anger anyone behind you.Â