Ajikoma — Restaurant in Hobart

I don’t often leave reviews unless if it’s for exceptional service or lacklustre performances but unfortunately it is for the latter this time around.

The food was decisively average - nothing special. It is worth mentioning that the fried rice lacked flavour and heavily overpriced for its quality, resembling an amalgamation of mushy cold rice and frozen peas rather than a stir fry.

My biggest gripe is with the quality of the servers. Our table of 8 ordered 8 mains and I asked if the server had put through 8 meals to which she replied yes. My father was left without his ramen as the servers brought out 7 mains.

As a server myself, I can forgive this mistake as we are all human, but the follow up can only be described as sad. The ramen was brought out long afterwards, leaving my father to awkwardly finish his meal as everyone else waited for him. The servers lacked any cohesion and cooperation as his ramen was brought in and out of the kitchen multiple times and placed in front of my father before it was taken away just 5 seconds afterwards as he was about to take a sip of the broth, only for the server to do a lap of the restaurant wandering aimlessly before once again placing it down in front of him.

My experience can only be described as lacklustre and a sour taste. It will take much convincing and change before I return here. I might recommend more thorough training of the waitresses as they seem awkward, uncoordinated and lost...

Very poor customer service and food is nothing special, this is the first time I given a bad review to a Japanese restaurant. We waited at the door as we expected it would have someone to lead us to a table just like any dine in restaurant but when the lady saw us she doesn’t respond so I told her we got two people here. And she just pointed to the table next to her counter and rudely said “SIT HERE”(I’m sorry if we behave like a dumb as this is our first time visiting your restaurant) we sat down but we change to another table close to the window, however after less than five minutes before we order anything , we decided to moved back to the table where we first sat(maybe that’s the reason offended her). Then we went to the counter to make an order and it’s my bad that I didin’t put my mask on properly but my partner was helping me to put them as I was holding the menu and again she raised her voice and rudely said “Mask please”. Then when some other local customers came in she greeted them but when we left she not even say a single word like what a customer service should have. Me and my partner were unhappy after leaving the restaurant. Ps: she’s a Malaysian just like us but how sad when we see someone from our same background treated us poorly especially when you’re supposed to have a good manner in serving any customers. Will not ever visit...

Disclaimer! This is just a review of the Signature Ramen. The staff at Ajikoma are lovely, the restaurant is nice, they are generous with the fish in their sushi and all the ingredients are very fresh! I have done an older review of how happy I was with the above. I just thought I’d give their ramen a whirl, and this is what came of it.

While the broth is thick and creamy, I was sad to find that there wasn’t any depth of flavour beyond that of salty pork. The broth maybe should have been skimmed a little more during cooking, as there is a thick layer of oil at the top. The toppings are fresh and crunchy (love the classic fish cakes, they’re so cute!) but the noodles lacked ‘bite’ and the chashu pork was almost entirely fat (and what little meat there was, was very dry). I would’ve liked the eggs to be marinated and classically gooey rather than plain and hard-boiled, too.

I think, if you’ve never tried ramen before, you’d probably be very happy trying this? But as someone who spent a lot of time in some of Melbourne and Singapore’s best ramen-dens, this was as expected - mediocre. I’d say Bar Wa Izakaya is a better bet to meet your...