Ramen Joy — Restaurant in Bedford

Driving up to the place, I should have took the restaurant sign as a "sign" of the food and service.

Walking in, it appears to be an old Taco Bell restaurant. With that being said it does not have a unique feel on the outside. On the inside it was barren; there were only two other customers in the restaurant.

The lady was a nice lady but very quiet, very mousey. When there was an order, she told some guy across the restaurant and he seemed to have an attitude.

I ordered the Spicy Tonkatsu Ramen and crab dragons with a water. I kid you not, before 5 minutes were up by food comes right on out. It took me off hybsurprise, considering that coming all these items would at least take a few more minutes than five.

As I look at the ramen sitting sadly in front of me, the lake of fat th as t was layered on top seemed a little excessive. The pork did not look recently cooked, and tasted as if it was cooked a long while ago. The noodles do not seem home made. The shape and taste were just bland. The broth was watery with no flavor. The boiled egg was overcooked and excessive hard.

The crab rangoon were not hot. They were luke warm at best. This signified tone that these were just sitting around. There was no remnant of it being fried recently either. No tiny droplets of oil, no soaking of my napkin making it translucent.

For the price of all these items, I would spend the extra couple of dollars and eat...

Food was good but atmosphere was sterile at best, lacking any distinction that would make the place anything more than forgettable. However, the food does help fix this by being very affordable and tasty. I ordered the Spicy Shoyu Pork which had all the expected bold flavors, and could have been a bit better if the eggs were soft boiled. My son echoed the sentiment on his egg as well, although his Spicy Miso Pork Belly hardly needed the richness of the egg yolk as it was very upfront with the umami that Miso is best known for. While the flavors were quite good, especially for the price, what I felt like the ramen bowls lacked was some texture which is usually provided by adding green onion and sprouts (which were mixed in the broth) , which luckily I remedied preemptively with the addition of the of the woodear mushroom add on, adding some earthy grassy texture to the dish. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy the food, quite the contrary. I will be back, probably with my whole family in order to justify ordering from the vast array of options on the menu, since there was a solid variety. The typical Chinese staples would do well with my younger kids and wife, while I was can stay more in the traditional side of the menu with great dumpling options and of course more ramen choices. Might need to try the bacon ramen, since it even just mentions 🥓 bacon, as who...

Service was good, our waiter was friendly and attentive. However, there was a lot to be desired. Ordered the pan-fried dumplings, tonkatsu and spicy miso with udon noodles, because we saw that the basic noodles were a curly dehydrated ramen block like you would buy for a dollar in the store. Both of them had very oily broth with little flavor, to the point that the oil was already starting to settle on the top of the broth when we got our food. Chashu (meat) was very tough, not very easy to eat with chopsticks. The dumplings were fine, but it was kind of sad to use them to fill up, since the ramen was so lackluster.

All of this was priced only slightly less than Ramen Hakata or Hanabi. While I would accept this quality for lower-priced food, I was at least expecting a little better for what I paid.

Very cavernous, undecorated space ensured lots of echoing when a louder group sat near us, making conversation pretty impossible. Low-backed booths also ensured that I was getting repeatedly poked by a child that sat behind me, while his very embarrassed mother kept apologizing.

I might return in a few months, since I was really excited for this place to open and didn't want it to suck... But currently, I'd rather make the trip to Ramen...