Ramen Shifu — Restaurant in Madrid

First, let me talk about my dining experience. There are four main issues:

The restaurant’s service level is very low. The taste of the food is just average. The serving speed is quite slow—we waited 30 minutes for two bowls of ramen. There’s a bad odor coming from the restroom.

Here are the details:

Service: We dined there around noon and were served by a short-haired man wearing black-framed glasses.

When ordering, he didn’t ask me how spicy I wanted my noodles and just went ahead and ordered the spiciest option for me (the broth barely tasted anything except the chili oil). I brought a bag and was wearing a down jacket, and my friend and I were sitting at a two-person table. I noticed there were several empty chairs at the next table, so I asked if he could bring one over for us to place our stuff. He said no, and I didn’t understand why. Even though the chairs were empty, he wouldn’t let me use them. A few minutes later, my friend and I moved to a four-chair table. He probably thought we were taking up too much space because he gave us a puzzled look and complained to me about why I couldn’t just hold my bag while eating… I don’t think that’s something a server should do. At the very least, they should try to accommodate customers’ needs instead of complaining.

My bag is pretty big, and my original seat didn’t have a backrest to hang my down jacket. Plus, there were a few tables nearby where two people were sitting at a four-person table, so I don’t think my actions were unreasonable. Unless this server was discriminating against me because of my skin color, I can’t explain his behavior.

If you still want to try this restaurant, congratulations—you might get a...

I am giving this place a 3.5*! First of all, the place is nicely decorated and the staff is very friendly. You can see that a lot of thought has gone into the concept of the restaurant. They have the typical big wooden spoon to go with the soup, very tasty lemon ice tea and nice japanese background music.

Coming to the food: I had the pleasure to taste some of the best Ramen around the world, including the very famous Ichiran Ramen. Tonkotsu style is my favorite type of ramen, which is usually a rich, milky white pork broth, almost of slight creamy consistency depending on the level of fat. So naturally, the thing to try here at Ramen Shifu was the tonkotsu ramen. What I got was a watery, slightly fishy and bland broth. So no tonkotsu. My company ordered the shoyu ramen, which is slightly better but still nowhere close to an authentic ramen broth. It lacks the deepness and the flavour, which would only come from cooking a proper stock for a long time. The fried chicken wings were a tasty starter though! And the prices are really good, 6.5€ for the small portion and 8.5€ for the big one.

So the verdict is: It's alright, I'm sure lots of people would like it. But if you are looking for authentic good japanese ramen, Madrid may not be a good place to look for (for now!) If you never had ramen before, give this one a try though! It's not bad...

An update to my review of eight months ago: The food is good for the price. Probably not the best Ramen in town but adequate. It is a popular place to eat - you should book - when we left at 9pm on a Wednesday, there was a queue outside waiting to get in. Unfortunately, although our food was served in a reasonable time, when the restaurant became busier our second round of drinks was forgotten and other tables were becoming impatient. Two waiters in a busy restaurant, with a takeaway service, is not enough!

Lovely little restaurant. Bright interesting decor, clean environment, with friendly and efficient staff. The spicy meals are rated 1-5 with highest (5), not extremely hot. We both enjoyed our meal last night and found the price very reasonable. Happy...