Jeff S.
Yelp
Okiboru. Duluth has a few bad reviews... I believe that the reason that it really has these bad reviews because people aren't ready to go just themselves. They are comparing them to other Okiboru's Okiboru's.
In my opinion, their food was great, the service was excellent, and the speed at which the food came out was amazing too! I love the decor too! I definitely added to the walls that they painted white to allow customers to add their own artwork. Very cool!
Let's start with the food. We had three appetizers: the ebi karaage , the crispy gyoza, and the nori fries. The crispy Gyoza were filled with piping hot juicy meat. They were served with a standard Gyoza dipping sauce. Good stuff the ebi karaage was very crunchy, but they still had plenty of shrimp on the inside, because the shrimp were nice big jumbos. I made sure that I took a picture to show that these are not all breading. They are definitely meaty fried shrimp. These are served with some kind of a mayo sauce - I'm not 100% sure what the twist was on it, but they were also served with two pieces of cucumber as a nice refresher between the fried shrimp. The nori fries were much like Checker's fries with that light touch of extra crunchy batter- but of course they were seasoned with nori and a small amount of garnish. I wasn't impressed with them- because they were served with plain Mayo. I ended up requesting some soy sauce and chili paste to make my own sauce. They were MUCH ELEVATED then. I highly recommend making the chili-soy-Mayo sauce. Or just the chili-soy sauce to dip your fries.
Since we knew we were getting these appetizers, I let my sister choose the ramen and we requested 2 small bowls so we could share the ramen. She decided on regular Tonkatsu. I let her take the soft-boiled egg, which was definitely steeped in a soup/soy broth based on its coloring. I can't comment on the flavor of the egg, but she enjoyed it. The noodles definitely weren't handmade, but they could have been "house made" by the chain to stick to a recipe. So, they were just regular noodles. The pork chashu was on point. Whoever said it was falling apart in their review doesn't know anything about how it's made. It was delicious. The bone broth has the same issue I tasted before at the other Okkiboru location: it's too creamy to be just bone broth. They're definitely adding cream to the broth. It's not a bad thing at all, but it gives it an uncharacteristic thickness that was mentioned by another reviewer. They put a handful of green onion garnish (I think we got a little extra since they knew we were going to share it), but it was enough.
All-in-all, I would definitely visit again. Give them a shot - and try not compare them to another Okiboru location, because they are different people!
Ps- I'm going to attempt to upload more pictures after my review, but for now- the food and a couple wall shots will have to do.