Gaku Ramen — Restaurant in Burlington

Needless to say not the experience I was hoping for. I wish I could say I'm not angry, I'm disappointed. However that is untrue. I am very much both of those things. Whenever I come to Burlington, I always come here for food and have been for a few years. I always recommended this place and tonight I actually introduced it to a friend of mine. After tonight I am very sad to say that I cannot bring myself to ever return to this restaurant. So although I am angered and disappointed, I am mostly saddened that my favorite restaurant has been ruined for me. To put some detail to the review, my table of 4 had to wait over an hour for our food after ordering. Not once after our drinks were given were we checked on by our waitress (the reasoning was told to be short staffing yet there were plenty of servers just hanging around). My fried rice tasted like it was warmed up in a microwave 30 minutes prior because it was tasteless and cold. The 3 others I went with didn't even eat half their bowls and said that cup noodles from the grocery store tasted better, they had all asked for the "make it spicy" option that costs extra yet none got the sauce in it to make it spicy. Not to mention the managers boyfriend who showed up and sat next to our table got served before us and 3 other tables who had been waiting about the same amount of time. She claimed short staffing yet was sitting with him all over him kissing him and rubbing up on him, which honestly was a bit off-putting to be sitting next to in a restaurant when it's the manager with someone. The waitress came over for the first time (not to initially serve the drinks or food) with the bill. I politely asked that since the food was not good and barely eaten and we had an extremely long wait of 1+ hr if we could at least get our drinks taken off the bill that was already over $100. (3 of us got one drink each that was long drank before we even had food to enjoy it with). I was told our appetizer could be taken off the bill but that was all. The manager was very rude with us as well when she heard us comment about the wait to ourselves because we were worried our parking time for our car would run out. We also overheard her at a different table saying very rude remarks to them because they were also wondering where their food was. I worked Food service for 5 years and cannot believe the level of disrespect that we received tonight, I will definitely be making top ramen packets before I...

I have never been to Gaku where I haven't waited at least 45 minutes from the time I put my order in to when the food arrives. I'm writing this after having waited over an hour for food. The food itself is good, but not so good as to be worth these wait times.

Update - 12/15/24:

I'm downgrading my review. I've eaten at Gaku twice in the past month, each time ordering Miso, with the curly style noodles adding Kadema. In the time since I first reviewed Gaku, something has changed about the way they are preparing the noodles themselves: They seem to be overcooked, and when eaten, the noodle is doughy, mushing together and losing consistency in the mouth. Normally the noodles have a distinct bounce in the chew that makes them enjoyable to eat. No longer. During my second to last visit the bartender noticed that I had not touched my extra noodles and asked what was wrong. I told him about the problem with the texture, and I asked him to touch the uneaten noodles to see what I meant. The bartender immediately remarked that he understood what I meant, agreed that the noodles should not be that way, and refunded me for the additional noodles. I couldn't be happier with this response, but my expectation was that this would lead to some quality control changes by the next time I ate at Gaku. I returned maybe a week or two ago and got the same order, but I had the same experience, and this time I explicitly sent the Kadema side back.

What sucks so much about this is that Gaku has shortened the time between ordering and receiving of food, but I believe that they are precooking the noodles to do so, which results in a downgrade to the food - the one saving grace of the my experience during the first iteration of my review.

It makes me cry every time I think about Onsen Ramen in Essex closing down, because they had truly nailed the food quality and time-to-service. Currently there doesn't seem to be any competitor delivering a decent ramen experience in or around Burlington, excepting Asiana Noodle House when they are running a...

I have never had such a negative experience at a restaurant. We were so excited to eat some ramen, put our names in, get told it will be an hour wait. That’s fine! We go walk around and come back a little later.

We ordered hot sake for the table. The sake was hardly lukewarm.

Our waiter had to double check with us that he had put in our appetizers correctly. We kindly ask the next round of sake be heated up more. The sake was a bit warmer that time but not at all hot.

The pork buns were good but the gyoza we received tasted like frozen supermarket dumplings fried quickly in a pan. We did not see our server again after that. The restaurant was not at all busy. There were three other tables besides ours with two waiters to check on tables.

Our ramen order took an hour, as did the orders of the three other tables in there with us. Ramen does not take an hour to make.

The boyfriend of the hostess/bartender/who knows came in halfway through our stay sat down and got served a bowl of ramen before any of us waiting. The hostess would then go over and kiss and cuddle with boyfriend right next to another table. Very off putting and awkward.

By the time we received our ramen, we were ready to leave. We attempt to eat our meals as not much else would be open at this point. The quality was equal to the 1 dollar instant packs you can get at home. A tiny scrap of pork was in my bowl and no meat at all in my friend’s bowls.

The hostess was so incredibly rude and unprofessional after we complained about our experience. Blamed the abysmal service on being short staffed. Yet the whole time we were there, the two other waiters seemed to be wandering around or hiding out in the back. The hostess as I said before had plenty of time to mess around with her boyfriend.

Do not give this restaurant your hard earned money. I work in food service and I understand when things are short staffed it is difficult. This was not the case and they used this excuse to deliver a piss poor experience. Stay home and make yourself...