The Ramen Shop - Newtown — Restaurant in Wellington

Ate here with my family recently, wanting to introduce my phở loving mum to another delicious Asian noodle soup. I had high expectations, based on the other reviews here, but was unfortunately pretty disappointed. I had the spicy tonkotsu - firstly the noodles were excellent, great texture and springiness. The pork was nicely cooked. It was really let down by the broth which was thin, too salty and lacked the distinctive rich creaminess usually associated with tonkotsu. I also thought the egg was too undercooked (onsen egg should not have a completely liquid yolk). My mother's chicken ramen broth was also too salty. We would not recommend ordering the kimchi side, which was not very good. It was apparently vegan kimchi, which may explain the strange flavour (it's usually prepared with fish sauce or salted fish) but not the mushy texture. We much preferred the pickled vegetable side. Maybe we just came here on a bad day? Aside from the food, the service was good. Food arrived promptly and was well presented. The wooden soup spoons are a tad gimmicky and not particularly...

Just had a very poor experience here. Walked in and waited to be seated, as per the sign on the door, stood around for a minute as one of the employees wiped the big table, at which point she said as if it was obvious "oh, you can sit anywhere" I said "oh but the sign outside said to wait..." She didn't reply.

Then after I was seated she proceeded to continue wiping the table without giving me a menu, offering me water, anything. She finished wiping the table, went out the back, returned, and then began wiping another table. Not a word to me.

At the point where another staff member emerged from the back without looking up from his phone and went through to the kitchen, I walked out.

They weren't busy, there were only two people in there (none at the thoroughly wiped large table) and both of them had already managed to extract food from them. So, I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect a touch more engagement at 12:50pm...

The broth is quite good, and the noodles are perfectly cooked. But the two dishes we ordered both had some feature that let them both down and made the experience really unpleasant. The filling of the tofu bao buns was sloppy and unpleasant - much better tofu bao buns are on offer at Mr Go's for example, and this place could learn from that. My partner and I both ordered the spicy chicken ramen which was ruined by using a very hot fresh chili as a garnish, when the menu had said that it was a piece of pickled chili. There wasn't any fat in the mix that would have made this chili edible, and my partner couldn't even finish his meal after eating it.

Add to that the very long wait for food due to a malfunctioning printer, and I can't see us ever coming back. I recommend trying...