Sophie B.
Yelp
First and foremost, the food is absolutely five stars. I've been meaning to try Ekiben for a while, I'm so glad I finally have. But, I also know it's dangerous because now I'll just want to try everything on the menu... multiple times.
My partner got the spicy neighborhood bird bowl, I ordered the mild neighborhood bird bun, and we split the tempura broccoli. The curry-fried chicken is insanely flavorful, the sauces that come on both dishes enhance the flavor, and the garnishes are *chef's kiss*. When it comes down to the two entrees, the bun being $13.25 and the bowl being $17.25, I would say the prices are a bit steep but that the bowl definitely comes with more to encourage that price point. The bowl comes with pickled onion, pickles and a slaw, all served over rice, with two pieces of chicken. We ended up not finishing our tempura broccoli/all of the bowl and decided next time it might be fine to just split a bowl and a side or two.
Service was great, no complaints there!
Moving on to the reason it's not quite five stars, I do think the overall ambience of the restaurant is fine, but it would be nice if they had a better seating area. I'm unsure of what it's like at the other locations, but here the music is pretty loud and there's just some like high top, counter-style seating. It was fine but it would've been nice to have better seating options. It seems like a primarily takeout joint. Last, the only really "disappointing" thing here is the lack of drink options. There was a cooler with two (sorry, overpriced) bottled beverage choices, or water in tiny water cups from an igloo cooler. They could definitely benefit from even just getting bottled sodas or something to add to the cooler.