Kokoro Tokyo Mazesoba - Richmond — Restaurant in Richmond

Understandably this is a soft opening with newer staff and the kitchen is new for the cooks. It’s unfortunately not quite comparable to the other Kokoro yet, but given time I’m sure they’ll get there. #1 there’s a technique to having mazesoba. And it’s pretty much whatever a chef can imagine can be made . So you’ll rarely dine one shops mazesoba the same as another. There is no base of foundation for a traditional bowl of noodles when compared to a classic bowl of Shio ramen for example. So if you’re here looking for classic ramen, you might find it a bit challenging. Go to the back of the menu and you’ll find the ramen, with the tonkotsu broth and options. There isn’t any Tokyo style classic simple taste ramen nor the chicken based soup broth. As for classic Tokyo ramen very few places off this in favour for the more rich fatty (less healthy) version. Aka the modern tonkotsu broth. Ok now for our experience. Yaya our “Japanese food critique” from Koto by fame of the early days of Yelp had her spicy mazesoba and found it ok. She’s rate that in the middle so giving it three stars. The gyoza was decent and the karage chicken was about average. Depending on your preference you may love it or just like it. But for the karage steamed bun I wonder if it was microwaved a bit to warm up the bun because it came hard like when you microwave bread. IYKYK. My brother got his charsiu ramen noodles hard, but the noodles came out very soft. Maybe the cooks are still learning. Give them time. He rated his experience 3 stars . As for me I ordered charsiu ramen with the low carb noodles. The noodles were about 1.5 inches in length so they were pretty short, but on the plus side it was chewy and nice. The charsiu was good but it was very fatty. So my liver was aching afterwards. Very fatty. The least favourable part which we are finding with some ramen places is when we got our soups. They were all lukewarm. Not hot, just above room temperature. That’s a big issue for us. It seems that these days if you want a hot bowl of ramen you’re limited here in Vancouver. Go to Japan and you’ll know the difference. Sadly I hope this trend of lukewarm soups will change. Even for a soft opening, just having the warm soup has helped me realize that I have other options. On the plus side the prices are decent. The service is good and I’m sure will get better with experience. But for me, I’m still searching for that solid traditional champon ramen with simple dashi piping hot and delicious. Maybe next time I’ll come and try the mazesoba’s. Oh BTW one person reviewed this place as udon……….and if you’re older or diabetic, like me, you’ll find the food very...

There are some servers here that take their noodle policing way too far. I came here as a party of 2 and we dined in ordering two bowls of ramen; we each ordered 1 extra noodle.

I couldn't finish my extra noodle so I paid for a take out container to bring my left overs home. My server was fine with my request to pack left overs home.

I then ordered a chashu ramen to go for my spouse and a chashu rice bowl. Another server (not the one assigned to my table) walked by and "audited" the order ticket by my table and proceeded to interrogate me about the paid take-out container and the extra noodles that showed up on the ticket.

This server then proceeded to tell me that I am not permitted to take left overs home, in particular, the noodles and that it is the franchise's policy to disallow customers from taking left over noodles home.

I then saw this server start interrogating my table's server and disciplining him at the back of the restaurant. I honestly felt bad for my server that he had to go through that.

I am now left confused. Why are customers not allowed to take their left overs home? We paid for the food and we couldn't finish it and we want to take what's left home.

I had to explain to this over zealous server to the effect that the noodles are left overs from my dine in order then he said it was some misunderstanding.

But when recalling the situation, I shouldn't have to explain anything and this server has no right to talk to me like it's a prevention and loss management situation -neither should he have disciplined my table's server.

Whatever company policies there are, I will just stick to the other Kokoro locations because this one in Ironwood is too uptight...

First time visited the place and the host was too busy on the phone, could not even bother to put them on hold and serve the in store customers. Regardless, got our table within 5 mins as it wasn’t busy at all yet. However, I asked for hot water and a green tea as I had a cough and they both arrived fairly cold… That’s insane! How can a hot green tea which they charged me for be cold/room temp… My boyfriend got his ramen first and I had to wait almost 10+ mins for it. It was weird because for some reason the table diagonal from us had a man get his ramen first before his other friend. Weird… I felt as though they just have given my bowl to him by accident. Since I noticed the girl server stopped at my table first but then ended up turning back as if she didn’t know how to read the tables. Lastly, I got splashed with bleach water… The server that was cleaning the table beside us dropped his spray bottle. Like it was a big splash, it hit our booth, my face and glasses. As well as the plastic barrier on left… It was quite insane how inexperienced the male server was. He barely even apologized! But he just have been to embarrassed to even acknowledge his mistake… How can one knowingly splashed bleach water onto a customer and not bother asking if they are okay or even slightly comp their meal… I couldn’t finish my bowl anymore bc if it hit the plastic barrier on my left, it surely went into my bowl. Disappointed at the staff’s professionalism. Definitely won’t be coming back unfortunately, there are way better places I’ve...