Pah Ramen - Balatong Branch — Restaurant in Ilocos Norte

Tucked away off the main road, Pah Ramen isn’t the easiest to spot—some signage from the main road would help. There is parking available, which leads directly to a pleasant garden dining area.

The restaurant offers three seating areas: • Indoors: Air-conditioned space with wood paneling, a wooden ceiling, and Buddha artwork on the walls. However, it’s quite small, with only five tables and a compact maki kitchen. Music inside had a loud bass, which some might find overwhelming. • Outdoors (Garden and Terrace): Decorated with fairy lights, wooden features, and a night-wood style roof. There are Buddha statues for ambiance. There’s also an upper level accessed by a spiral staircase, though it features basic plastic chairs and tables, which feel less refined.

Food & Drink: • The ramen menu is extensive, spanning three pages. There’s also a page dedicated to rice dishes and an entirely separate Filipino menu. • Agedashi tofu was over-battered, and the tofu lacked softness, making it below average. • The salmon was served frozen—disappointing. • The seafood spicy ramen was average. It used egg noodles instead of traditional Japanese ramen noodles. Some mussels weren’t open, though the ebi prawn was nicely cooked. The broth was too thick, almost stew-like. • The ebi tempura roll (8 pieces) was enjoyable, with the mango topping adding a nice twist. • The spicy tuna roll underwhelmed. The tuna inside lacked flavor and was overpowered by the spicy tuna topping. • Tamarind juice was overly sweet, even though I had asked for no sugar. • Vanilla Oreo banshu was below average, with the Oreo flavor overwhelming everything else.

Service: Service was poor. It took a long time to receive the menu, and my drink only arrived after two reminders. Overall, not a smooth...

Was wondering why the ratings was quite high when in fact the food was all mediocre. Ordered salmon sashimi and asked the wait staff if it's fresh. Was surprised how they manage to bring in fresh salmon sashimi in this countryside. When it was served, appearance was rather pale and texture was way far from what it used to be "salmon sashimi" ordered 2 sets with 4 slices, wasted 1 set bec we were anxious that it could lead us to food poisoning. Ordered poke nachos and it was damn scam for the money.. ordered salmon roll and again, the same quality of salmon they used for sashimi, again not recommended. Ordered tonkatsu ramen, baby back ribs and seafood ramen. This was not bad at all. Except for the baby back ribs ramen. Tonkatsu was accepted but not really excellent. Seafood ramen I must say the flavour was good. Ordered tempura, breading was good however it's too thick and makes the shrimp really so small. Ordered a shrimp tempura and not breading tempura.haha.. Service was below average, not even single greeting when we arrived. Except find your own seat? Lol. Overall experience was not really on point. Felt wasted all the travel and money. Sides are not recommended. This place is more of a hype . Above all, I hope the management will look into the quality of...

Went here before lunch time (11AM) and we had the entire place to us. We appreciate how the Ramen options can be at par with Ramen stores in the metro.

We ordered Beef Spicy Ramen (4/5), Tantanmen (3.5/5), Ebi Gyoza (4/5), California Maki (3.5 the taste was great except for the lack of Masago making me doubt if its really California Maki) and Vanilla Oreo Bingsu (4/5).

Place is parching but is expected because of the time we went there for lunch, though you can go to their 2nd floor dining area to catch some warm wind or stay in ground floor with some e-fans for request. The place is relaxing on cool November/December nights

Accommodation/Staff - spot on. Very attentive of requests and follows through on...