Monee G.
Yelp
This place definitely puts the "Mid" in Mediocre, I've had this ramen restaurant bookmarked for yeeears. My expectations weren't met at all, they missed the mark so hard. Especially in comparison to so many other ramen shops the food here was flat. This is good for beginners or people who've only had cup of noodles and packaged ramen. Even then certain brands have more depth of flavor than what I had here. According to yelp it said the live wait time was 5 mins but when we got there as a party of 3 it was not.
I checked in as we stood outside waiting to be seated, the inside is very small but that's something I'm acquainted too when it comes to most ramen shops. I don't know if they do this to give the Japanese aesthetic but we're in America and I wish more ramen shops would open up locations with more space to lessen wait times. The host brought us over to a dirty table that she had to come back and wipe down, we're starving so my mom orders a $5 Nikuman (bao) which is an insane price btw along with shrimp wonton ramen. I had asked for house salad, Tokyo curry rice, with JINYA tonkotsu black ramen and my niece ordered edamame, a side of rice and JINYA chicken ramen.
Neither one of them have ever had authentic ramen and this was not the location to do so, the salad was ok seemed like they took a grip of garnish and slapped it on a plate and poured all the dressing in the middle so there was a thick glop of sauce sitting in one spot. I gave it to my mom, they munched away at the edamame and our ramen arrived about 30 minutes later and we saw a lot of other tables complaining they were waiting between 45-60 minutes on their food. Ramen should NEVER take that long, There were only 2 cooks, unless one was on break, 2 servers and a hostess trying to run food while seating people and the manager. You could tell they were absolutely swamped with takeout orders, being neglectful to the ones dining in. Food carriers were showing up in droves to stand at the pick up area outside and inside, some waited so long they cancelled and left to continue to deliver from other restaurants.
After all that time me and my niece never received our rice dishes so we asked for that to be removed and cancelled all together. I also wish the server let me know they had a Tokyo rice curry + house salad combo because that's exactly what I ordered separately and would've saved me money while being decent portions. My mom was intrigued with her ramen the first few mouthfuls and then once her tastebuds adjusted could tell she wasn't as impressed. The only good thing my niece had to say about hers was the chicken melted in her mouth.
As for me I tried to add fresh garlic, sauces etc but there was no UMAMI it gave watered down concentrated broth. I usually do this little subconscious dance if I'm eating something really good and it never happened. For $20 this was not worth it at all, very little broth and it came with small noodles. In my mind reading the menu, thick noodles is usually Udon, but the thick noodles is regular size ramen so that makes a difference when it comes down to being filling. If the broth was rich and substantial I could see why people would order small noodles so they can order extra without getting as full fast. The soft boiled egg was overcooked, and the chashu had too much fat. If I wanted all fat I could've gotten butter instead but I wanted protein! I was still hungry and dissatisfied but I didn't want to order more broth or noodles because the kitchen was struggling so bad, I was worried we'd have to wait another eon.
Even considered dessert but there's an Urth Cafe across the way, and didn't want to sit in those uncomfortable chairs for one more minute. The wooden seats are very hard and not pleasant to sit for prolonged periods of time. Unfortunately, I had high hopes but I wouldn't return.
