Chris Y.
Yelp
Sobo Ramen is located right on the outside facing area of the Asian Cultural Center in the Oakland Chinatown area. Many years ago this location was actually a pretty well known ABC bakery/restaurant, which offered cheap bread, cheap meals, and overall a pretty decent mainstay in this area right next to the parking lot entrance. While it's certainly change cuisine, Sobo Ramen has been here for quite some time themselves as well now.
The restaurant is pretty big. When you walk by it on the side walk, it also feels like there's two doors, because the front side of the store used to be set up like that for ABC, but there's only one door on the left side of the storefront. Once you walk in, there's a lot of tables front and back, but since they're generally not as crowded nowadays, just the front section is used.
The service was decent. The server was helpful and friendly. We were seated pretty quickly, albeit, we ate pretty late in the afternoon so they weren't that busy. The menu they have is fairly straight forward, so there's not a whole lot you need to browse through before making a decision. There does seem to be a good handful of ramen broth options, so you will be able to sample different flavors if you ever want to revisit.
Price wise, it's about on par for the area. It is a bit pricier than what competitors might offer, but it's also ramen in this part of the town, so not terrible, but not cheap for sure considering all of the abundance of eating options in this immediate area.
Today I got the Spicy Mayu Ramen, with the spicy on the side, and the other eater got the Mayu Tonkotsu ramen, with the latter as a special that was written on the board towards the front podium.
One thing that I immediately noticed about my ramen and the other one as well: everything is pretty salty. I'm someone who enjoys his salty food, don't get me wrong, but there's a difference between salty flavors, and just tasting too much salt. Today, it was the latter, with both of our broths. The other person eating today actually had to ask the server to add more soup or something to condense down the overall saltiness of what arrived because it was just so densely salted. Mine was also pretty salted, though the black garlicness of my broth certainly helped a bit. The overall flavors of the broths were not bad, but I do feel that the overbearing salty flavors in the soup is just not going to be great for everyone, and many might find it's a bit too much. Particularly for ramen broth, flavors are meant to be rich, not dense. The ramen noodles itself were fine. The textures were okay, nothing extraordinary or anything. Not too soft, not too firm. The chasu meat was actually pretty tasty, though I do wish I got more than one slice in the bowl, but at least the slice is pretty thick and meaty. The tonkotsu was good, nice and flaky, though the meat itself was kind of on the dry side, and for tonkotsu, you kind of need some of that oil within the meat itself to add flavor to the crunchiness of the dish, but it wasn't terrible, just nothing special.
Final verdict? Sobo Ramen is a decent option for ramen, particularly if you're already here in the area doing shopping for groceries, buying boba, or just stopping by the library and want to stop by for some noodles. For ramen, their price in this area is about on par. For just bang for your buck meal? They are going to be on the higher side comparatively. The service was fine, so no complaints there. Portions are also decent, I mean, I was relatively full after the bowl of ramen, so that's good enough for me. It's not going to blow your mind by any means, but it's also not a bad option if you're here anyways and don't feel like driving around again, especially when you have to battle with parking at other ramen places.
