Butakun — Restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne

First timer coming here, probably the last.

I have went to many places in Japan for various ramen, chicken, beef and donburis, and eaten at a lot of Asian places in Newcastle, consistently ramen and chicken, so I can distinguish what is good and consistently made well.

Never knew Butakun existed so I reserved a spot as the reviews had highly acclaimed positive reviews.

I ordered myself a Tori Paitan ramen (鶏白湯ラーメン) and normal Chicken Kaarage (鳥か荒げ) and after being served, they both looked phenomenal by the presentation. Crispy batter on the kaarage with the broth of the ramen being very flavorful looking.

Tasting the ramen at first was very refreshing of that chicken broth taste, the noodles were higher quality. However, the chicken cuts were almost flavorless, despite how tender and high quality it is, put a let down on the ramen as it was not balanced well with the flavors and seemed inconsistent.

The chicken kaarage was a big let down. The battering done on the chicken was very airy and different to what I’d expect, but then the chicken inside is well tender but so flavorless, the batter had more flavor than the chicken meat. In addition, the batter didn’t go well with the chicken overall.

The atmosphere was fine, nothing else to run home by.

Service was great, very straight forward and obliged by Challenge-25 laws for...

Service was lousy, food was very average, overpriced for the service and quality of food.

Visited here today and was quite disappointed. We received slow and poor service for what was a quiet Monday afternoon lunch. In the restaurant there was only us (table of 3) and 1 other table (table of 2). All of the food came out at different times and the 2nd waitress was very standoffish and then was very rude to us when we pointed out a mistake in the food even though we thought it was already cleared up when we finished ordering.

The ikura salmon roe did not taste that fresh and we were charged a different price from the menu. The ramen noodles were clumpy and stuck together. The rice in the unagi don was cold. Tuna roll was good but portions not as generous as other places even though significantly more expensive. Altogether the meal was £91 (+ 10% service charge).

I appreciate it is a new establishment and they are still trying to find their feet and train their staff but for the price they are charging, it was very mediocre. I don’t mind paying this price if it was enjoyable and if service was good but today’s experience was very poor.

Would recommend the management team to train their staff to be more efficient, friendlier and nicer to customers. I can forgive average food but I can’t forgive rude...

Horrible

We ordered the following:

Wagyu roll: £28 - 98% rice 2% beed, honestly we couldn’t believe it. Tasted horrible too. Few tiny bits of beef and all rice. Spicy Salmon roll: £17, where was the salmon???? A roll as thick as my thumb, tiny piece of salmon in…seriously? Kara-age Chiken: £8.5 decent, can’t complain, chicken was tender, almost too tender, i pray to the gods of deep drying it wasn’t raw, didn’t check. Tonkotsu Ramen: £15.5 tasteless mess. The pork in it as actually good, and the egg. Broth had no taste at all. Noodles ok ish. Lemonade: can’t remember price, they gave me Sprite. Not sure why, I’ve seen this in other places too. Sprite is not lemonade ok? Sparkly sake: can’t remember price, was ok

Gutted i didn’t take pics. They added £8+ service charge. Ended up paying £90 and some change. Never going back there again. Should’ve realised it’s not good when we walked in at 1pm and it was almost empty. Fire the chef please, get someone decent in. Or send the chef to a cooking class, then to a few restaurants in the area to see how sushi is made. Can’t stress this enough but don’t go there, don’t waste money on overpriced garbage. Loads of other places very close, i won’t name them so people don’t think this review as competition...