Le Shrimp Noodle Bar – Le Shrimp Ramen

When Singaporean soup dumpling chain Paradise Dynasty opened its first U.S. store at South Coast Plaza in 2021, it immediately won both our interest and our repeat patronage: The concept wasn’t entirely original, but it was best-of-breed, and bold enough to compete directly with Din Tai Fung in the same building. On the same day, Paradise Dynasty’s parent company opened Le Shrimp Ramen, touting it as something different and unique – the country’s first restaurant to serve noodles with shrimp broth.

The Costa Mesa location of Le Shrimp Ramen is in the same Collage Culinary Experience area as Paradise Dynasty, but at basement level, accessible either by escalator or staircase from its sister restaurant’s prominent first floor space. Though the signage still bears that name, the company appears to be rebranding – including restaurants recently opened in Fountain Valley and Irvine – as Le Shrimp Noodle Bar.

On a positive note, the shrimp broth ramen is unlike any we’ve had before: Not as beautiful in reality as it always looks in the chain’s official photos, but thick with the flavor of liquified shrimp in the same way that Japanese tonkotsu broth benefits from hours of immersion in fatty pork. That said, while the shrimp broth starts out sort of interesting, it’s not addictive, and we didn’t feel compelled to drain the bowl after finishing the noodles.