Yokohama Ramen Saito — Restaurant in Schiedam

I really don't want to talk negative about this restaurant, because I do think the people who own this place are doing their best, but there a number of thing they haven't prioritized over the years, which I think they should, if they want to get better ratings. First of all, the atmosphere. Normally I don't really care about the atmosphere, I just care about whether the food is good, but in here it sort of does impact the food experience. It's really damp in here, because of the cooking of broth of course, but something needs to be done about the ventilation. They have fans, but the back-sides are clogged with dust and what seems to be like spider-webs (it would only take 10 seconds to wipe that off!). The place is very crowded, it's stacked with big bags of flour on the floor, on the place where customers are supposed to stand in line in order to be served.

The menu is one piece of laminated paper, it's improved from what it was before, but still very far from a somewhat decent menu, both the paper itself, as well as what's written on it. Please add a few more descriptions or pics, or what's in the bowl of ramen.

The chopsticks are single-use and they're much too short and thin to decently eat with these. Is it so much trouble to wash reusable and better quality chopsticks?

As for the most important part, the food. The broth was good. It was thick and gooey, in a good way, which means there's lots of collagen in it, but the taste didn't stand out. It's good enough though if it were complemented with good hand-made ramen, but this was not as I hoped or expected. My guess is they've changed their manufacturing process. The springy and chewy texture was not present, unfortunately, the most important part about ramen. As for the pork char siu on top, they still have a long way to go there. It was dry, not tender, not fat, tasteless. I couldn't tell whether the pork was marinated or not. Char siu should either be pork belly (which is fatty) or pork shoulder but simmered long enough to become soft. In this case it was the shoulder they served, but it wasn't tender yet. Yes, there were a few parts with fat (if you're lucky you'll get these), but most of it was not. As for the ajitama egg—also one of the things I look forward to most—this was a slight disappointment. You can see on the picture the yolk was partially well-done, it wasn't cut cleanly (you can see the egg white is sort of broken) and (I'm being very picky here) it should've been marinated a bit longer (the sauce had not seeped to the inside enough) and stirred better so the yolk would've been more in the middle.

As for service, the lady at the counter was very friendly. Nothing to complain about that, but there wasn't much service other than that. It's like a McDonald's where one waits in line and orders at the cashier, gets one's drink himself from the fridge, but has to pay at the cashier at the end again (but wait again in order to pay). That's a logistic problem right there, which is easy to solve.

Please also allow for debit card payments. At least they allow cards, which is better than a few years before, when they only accepted cash, but even today they still don't accept Debit cards, even though that's the current standard and requirement for all banks. Maestro is end-of-life and banks only give out...

I had great expectations of Yokohama's ramen given the overwhelming number of 5-star reviews, but I was honestly disappointed in the flavour of the broth AND service.

TL;DR: I've had better ramen and service in other ramen restaurants. I would not come here again based on the service, the cooks were nice tho and said goodbye when we left.

I chose the Soy Tonkotsu and my bf had Miso Tonkotsu. Both tasted a bit odd. The Soy Tonkotsu reminded me a lot of (Chinese) chicken-ginger broth that I would drink when I was ill - as you can see did not taste like Soy Tonkotsu?

The Miso Tonkotsu tasted a bit off as well and had a very particular flavour. But that might be due to the miso they used (as I'm used to the flavour of white miso).

Then; the service was displeasing to say the least. We were standing in line at opening (Thursday 17:00) and it was still quiet as there were hardly people before or after us (maybe just 3 groups in total).

(1) We were not complete yet, but the lady kindly asked us about the number of persons with a smile, and upon replying her smile instantly dropped - keep in mind that at opening the restaurant was not filled yet - which we found odd. We were asked to wait until we were complete which was fine. (2) Once we were complete, she (while smiling) asked again for the number of persons (4), and here too her smile instantly dropped after us replying. Yet, she let the people behind us in first while we were first in line.

But alas, we went in, order was taken, and food was brought to our table. Drinks are self-service and complimentary. All was good.

(3) We paid at the counter and were asked if we have a stamp card - which we didn't. And thus we got one. From what I understand, you get one stamp per empty bowl - yet we only got ONE stamp on the new card.

Overall, the behaviour of the lady/waitress really left us with an...

This shop serves a fantastic bowl of ramen. That that is no easy feat is evidenced by the scores of shops serving premade, uninspired, inauthentic bowls. Not so at Yokohama Ramen Saito. The soup is a luxurious tonkotsu pork broth, thick with fat and collagen, blended with soy sauce. Shimmering with aroma oil and bubbles (wow). It is heavy, no doubt but that is the style. It needs to deliver an umami uppercut to your palette and that's what it does. It does that however, with a restrained sense of balance, leek and raw onion bring brightness and sharpness to cut through the heavy pork flavor and brighten it up. Making it a pleasure to keep eating. Then the noodles, often the underrated element of a high quality bowl of ramen. Noodles need to work with the soup, they need to carry the flavors while you slurp them up. Here a somewhat unusual style of noodles is served. Flour ground by the nearby windmill is crafted into slightly curly and hefty noodles. Impressively, without becoming chewy, heavy or overly soft. A fantastic balance that works well with the thicker soup. Really letting the pork flavors cling to their surface. The ajitama (egg) is cooked and seasoned properly. The chashu pork is cooked to a lovely tenderness, retaining a full flavor. The menma bamboo shoots were so tender and fresh and the nori on point. All in all this a shop that would do great business anywhere in Tokyo (or Yokohama). This is real ramen and this is great ramen. Well done...