Kuma Bento & Ramen São Bento — Restaurant in Porto

I’m reviewing this out of love and wanting the place to improve. First thing, the owners are very friendly and kind when we arrived. The service was great. They accommodated the space for us for our pup in a stroller. They greeted us with smile. The space is cute, in a niche kind of way. I like seeing the anime themed decor upstairs. The place is small and they did their best with what they have. The food, unfortunately, fell short. The shrimp tempura was not tempura. They are more like katsu - using bread crumbs instead of tempura batter. They also didn’t have the traditional tempura dipping sauce, instead they use some kind of mayonnaise. It makes the tempura feel a bit dry. The ramen I tried wasn’t good either. The broth taste more like shio (soy based) instead of Tonkotsu (pork bone). It is also overly salty, even for me who likes salty food. The chashu, was chewy and a bit tough. They didn’t melt in my mouth. The noodle I had was a bit overcooked and tend to stick to one another. I tried my friend’s ramen broth as well (they ordered tempura ramen and vegetarian ramen). I couldn’t taste the difference between those broth and mine.

I hope the food can be improved. I would love to see this place thrive and get a repeat customers. I would love to come back here again to see when the food are improved, so I can edit...

Delicious udon soups! Prices are between €10 and €15 per dish. I think there are 6 types of udon and 4 types of bento boxes. There are some side dishes as well, but not a big choice which is good because it means it’s super fresh.

Pork udon was great! Pork slices were big and very flavourful! Tasted like bbq. Soup was tasty, not too salty.

We got a spot even though we didn’t have a reservation. We sat at the kitchen bar, which was a great experience. We saw the dishes being prepared freshly.

Service was really nice and pretty fast for drinks. They told us the wait for the food was about 20 mins. This was no problem for us.

Toilet was okay. Free of charge but only one toilet in the restaurant (1st floor).

End of september 2024 the city is working on the beginning of the street so the restaurant might be harder to find....

Not going to lie, we found this place because it had a cute panda eating noodles on the outside.

The decor inside was fantastic, service great, and food delicious.

I got the tonkotsu ramen and Mogu Mogu grape drink. I had no idea what Mogu Mogu was but got it to try out. Mogu Mogu is a fruit juice with fruit jelly, this concept is fairly common in most of Asia and drank something similar as a child. This was definitely a treat and brought back childhood nostalgia.

Ramen tasted great and hit the spot. After a long few days of walking, delicious ramen broth is one of the more tasteful ways to rehydrate.

I doubt you will get the same nostalgic feel drinking the Mogu Mogu, but you can experience the same great...