Rakkii Ramen — Restaurant in Bethlehem

First time coming to this location. We entered wowed and left with mixed feelings. As this is my first visit, please take this review with a bit of shoyu (trying to be funny, sorry). My husband and I entered the location and we were seated immediately. We were in for lunch and it was Monday so it wasn't packed. The price was a bit on the higher side but as this is the only ramen shop for many miles, this was understandable. There were three other tables, two of which were seated after us. The atmosphere is lovely and modern. Husband and I were quite impressed. We ordered gyoza as appetizer. Great gyoza. Many ramen shops choose to buy ajinomoto brand gyoza on wholesale but these were not of that brand. The dumpling skin was more like Shumai skin and it was not overcooked. Very delicate and delicious gyozas. He ordered shoyu ramen but subbed out the charsiu for shrimp. I ordered beef sukiyaki ramen. Presentation of the ramen was beautiful. The broth in both were nice and fatty. However, my husband's shoyu ramen was cold. Barely lukewarm. Knowing how to make ramen (ive worked in numerous traditional ramen shops), i could only assume they had refrigerated semi-cooked ramen that they swirled in noodle water before laying it in the bowl and poured the hot broth over it. The taste was great but the coldness and texture of the noodle left my husband rather disappointed. The shrimp was basic boiled shrimp so there wasn't much to note in that regard as well. My sukiyaki ramen came out better than I expected it would and I enjoyed it from start to finish, savoring the broth and feeling quite satisfied by the portion served. So my experience was good, his was not great but it wasn't bad. However, our waiter had not checked in with us at all. We were seated, we ordered, and we were left alone. The table next to us had seen our waiter thrice after they were served and the table behind was seen thrice after they were seated. We felt that the service was a bit spotty. We got our bill after I made eye contact with the waiter. I would like to say that they maybe run the establishment like a traditional ramen shop would, as the wait staff in those don't check on you, you flag the waiter down. But as we saw our neighboring tables being checked with no prompt, id have to guess this is not the case. Again, this looks like a bad review, but as it is our first time to this establishment, I would highly recommend not setting much of an expectation based on this review. We are planning on returning and I am hoping to have a much better idea of the establishment then. To summarize, location is wonderful, atmosphere great, service is fast albeit possibly spotty, food was pretty good, albeit my husband's was served a bit under par, price is ok considering how uncommon ramen shops are despite being about 40% higher than many establishments...

Unfortunately I cannot leave a review about the food. My friend called at 12:35 to ask about making a reservation, she was told they do not take reservations. Okay, we (a party of 5) showed up around 6:20 and were told it would be 15 minutes. No problem, my friends had been here before and loved the food. We enquired about the large table that was being cleared and we were told it was reserved for a party at 6:30. One of the women leaving from the table made a comment how she did not like feeling rushed to leave after eating. We asked about the table being reserved since we were under the impression they did not take reservations, the hostess said they take walk in reservations (????). We asked if two smaller tables could be pushed together and were told it was a policy of theirs to not move their furniture. We were offered seats at a bar but asked for a table to make conversing a bit easier. We waited 40 minutes when a party larger than just 2 were seated before us. There was no communication from staff as to what was happening with our wait other than being told we would have to leave the inside of the building to continue waiting because we were a fire hazard. When I asked the hostess about other seating options she told me there wasnt anything that could be done. Then I asked someone else for a manager since, the hostess was now occupied with her friends that had left when we got there and had now returned, the manager listened and apologized and insisted she didnt know why her hostess would say it would be a 15 minute wait, the manager offered to ask another table how much longer they thought they would be. I dont want to rush another group and the fact that was even offered is a bit appalling, I would feel so uncomfortable if someone asked me how much longer I would be at a restaurant. If there was communication about seating and honesty about the wait time we wouldnt have waisted nearly an hour of our time and would be more willing to try this place again. After this experience I have no desire to go back, and after the lack of professionalism I'm sure they would say they wouldnt want us...

First time here....very cool ambience...music didn't really go with atmosphere but not big deal. The food was fresh & delicious. The menu was nice. The place was full which is always good. The service is why I'm giving 2 stars. It was our first Time here& if the food was not delicious, not sure we would go back. The servers are not knowledgeable on products. They never told us their names or asked us if we had any questions. When we did have questions, It was clear they had no patience or understanding in how to answer them. There was such a disconnect in their social skills. The guy was a little better than the girl but not by much. We felt ignored& we felt like nobody could care that we were there for the 1st time or care if we ever came back again. Nobody once came and checked on us to see how things were. We didn't know we had to pay on the way out we would have no way of knowing this as we were never here before nobody explain that to us. We waited for someone to take our check and realized that wasn't happening so we decided to walk up to pay and we asked what time they closed and we were treated very rudely complete with dirty looks when we were given the answer. Perhaps people were just having a bad day to happens to everybody. This is a pretty cool concept of a restaurant and it's exciting to have it in Bethlehem but servers needs...