Ramen Nagi — Restaurant in Arcadia

First time here, my review and rating are shaped by the experience I had. I was invited by my brother in laws family. Skip to the end for the condensed version of this.

How it works, stand in line, a friendly guy comes around with a chart explaining how to build your own ramen, a build your own menu gets handed to you where you check off the many different ways to customize your ramen the way you want. One of the options being “chefs choice” which i chose, my wife and kids did their own.

He reviews our selections.

Next we are passed off to another waiter that takes us to our table. He checks our menu selection with us.

Finally, we get to our server, Brittany. She was nice and polite and had a name badge to be able to give her a good mention. She tells us that the exhaust I sn’t working and we can’t get any of the items our kids wanted. Bummer but understandable.

She reviews our order with us and explains how fast the meals are made.

Here is where it begins to go south, a woman comes from the kitchen area with one of the menu papers which has everything selected but veggies. She tells us something to the effect , veggies wasn’t selected do you want veggies in your ramen? My wife says no, she then says you need to circle that on the menu and walks away!

Her tone and presence was rude, condescending and not what I expected as the menu was checked twice by two other employees before it made its way to the kitchen. The redundancy failed on this one.

Then the food comes out and the team (not Brittany) brings out the food and places the Ramen with the veggies in-front of my son. This was the one that we were told needed to be marked. The menu has our seat locations at the table so I assume they know where each meal is going. Redundancy failed again.

Lastly, the main lead or someone in charge of the tables was telling a new employee to hurry up, tables move fast and he needs to keep up. The conversation didn’t have a teaching tone and wasn’t off stage or away from guests as I could hear it.

Overall, the ordering process is well-structured, and Brittany provided great service, but the experience was overshadowed by poor communication, a rude kitchen staff interaction, and a lack of professionalism from leadership in the dinning area. I expected better attention to detail and a more...

I’ve been on the hunt for a ramen spot that has rivaled the ones I tried in Japan and was recommended this one. The first time we tried to eat here, the line was ~50 people deep so we decided to skip. The second time it had about 5 people on a Monday afternoon so gave it a shot. It is dine in only and no reservations so you are relegated to the queue. They hand you a card and crayons marker for ordering and will give you a run down of the food if it is your first time. Ordered the spicy ramen normal/normal/normal with thick firm noodles and both pork chashu and pork belly and spicy level 1 as well as the chicken special and a pork chashu rice bowl. They ushered us in to a large table in the middle of the restaurant. Considering this is a restaurant in America, I’m surprised the spacing between seats was so little. A server promptly came by and reviewed our order and submitted and the food all came out rather quickly. The chashu rice bowl was first and was ok. The rice was excellent as was the sauce but the minced chashu was too chewy and more reminiscent of a holiday ham in texture than pork chashu. Next came out the ramen and chicken special. The ramen was loaded with deep flavors and was very good. The noodles were definitely the way to order them as we also got some firm thin noodles and they were not as good. The pork chashu again was a bit of a disappointment as it was thinly cut like shabu meat but had the consistency of ham. Next time I would probably skip this all together and go for the pork belly which was unreal. Super tender and flavorful and fatty and a good contrast to the other flavors. Next was the chicken special which was also delicious. The breading and tenderness of the chicken pairs great with the Japanese Mayo they bring out. It is tossed with what tasted like a honey sauce which they could probably do without but those would be worth ordering again. For the two of us plus tip it was about $75 which is on the more expensive side so keep that in mind as any extras add up quickly.

Inside the atmosphere is very clean and nice and reminds me of a Japanese restaurant with attentive wait staff.

Overall it was a decent ramen spot (depending on what you order) that I wish did take...

Ramen is good if not amazing. I've been here multiple times and food is always consistently good. Service is good for the most part but unfortunately this time around I can see the environment has changed. Normally when I order my ramen I ask for spice on the side because I share a bowl with my toddler and this last time I came I was made aware by the staff that in the future if I ask for spicy sauce on the side they will only serve it if a child is present, so if I was to come by myself or other adult company they would not be able to serve the spicy sauce on the side. Why? you may ask, well Their reason why they are doing this is because apparently they don't want their competition to steal their secrets to their food. This is very disappointing and disheartening to me as a customer because this company is saying they care more about their own "pride" than the customer. Reality is the customer is also a part of the company and being able to provide good customer service should come before some secret recipe. What if a new customer is to come in and order a dish with spice but realizes it's not spicy enough and asks for more spice on the side. Is that customer not entitled to ask for more and be served more? What if a customer likes to control their spice level or dip it? This is a little bit ridiculous to make a customer feel the prejudice based on a some idea someone is trying to steal a recipe. Point is a restaurant will always have customers regardless if someone tries to steal your recipe so long as you provide consistency in good quality food and service. Last I remember In N out wasn't trying to limit the amount of secret sauce they give out to customers despite the amount of competitors who try to copy them without the same success. Also on another note the fact the you have to wait in line to be seated and take your own order then get up and pay up at the register and still be obligated to tip, come on! Let be real the least this establishment can do is give the damn people a side of spicy sauce without conditions after all the whole menu is practically customizable yet you can't request a spicy sauce on the side without having a child with you is the most ridiculous thing...