JINYA Ramen Bar - Carrollton — Restaurant in Carrollton

I'm from Florida, but I pull up to Texas every few months to visit family/friends. Every time I go, we make it a point to try out different ramen spots and see which one has the best tonkotsu ramen. Jinya was up next so here we are! First off, I just wanna say our server was awesome and super friendly. One of my friends had a question about the food/preparation and they were able to answer quickly and even give their own recommendations. I'm so sorry I didn't catch their name but please tell them their eyeliner is top tier 👌🏼👌🏼. I'm sure you know who I mean. On to the food we had. We had a Jinya bun, spicy chicken ramen, a chicken/rice bowl, and a curry rice. Of course, I had my tonkotsu ramen. I'm sorry I didn't get pics of anything else, I was just so excited for this pig ramen.

• Jinya bun - super flavorful, very tender pork, light and fresh greens • spicy chicken ramen - hearty broth, spicy but not overwhelming, soft chicken, perfectly cooked noodles • chicken/rice bowl - this was our server's recommendation, soft juicy karaage chicken, seasoned egg was heavenly bruh like idk how you get that flavor out of an egg, rice is very flavorful on its own, brussels sprouts were perfectly cooked • curry rice - same rice as before, the curry was actually pretty good considering I'm not really a curry guy, very well done

Ok here we go, the good ol tonka truck ramen. So it's been a couple hours since I had this bowl and I still struggle to find the words to describe it but imma try anyway. The noodles aren't your normal solid off-white noodle, these have like little black specs on em that make em look like a wheat noodle and idk what they are exactly but I love them. They have a deep flavor that interacts well with the crazy broth that imma yap about rn. This broth is insane y'all. If you could somehow condense the feeling of passing all your finals, diving into a warm bed on a cold day, and a hug from your mom, into a flavor that you could taste, this is it. Literal witchcraft is what these cooks are doing in that kitchen. It has like this deep pork bone flavor that just soaks into every cell in your body. If I could drink this broth instead of water, I would. The toppings man. Imma start with the egg. I touched on it a little earlier but seriously idk how you get an egg to taste like egg². Nah and I love the way it's so perfectly boiled inside, like it's gooey but it still stays together. I opted to not get kikuraage cause I'm just not a mushroom guy tbh. The nori sheets got that funky taste that you want from seaweed. They're so good if you grab em with the chopsticks and get some noodles and eat the whole thing. Try it if you've even read this far lmao. The pork chashu is suuuuper tender and just melts in your mouth once you start chewing it. The flavor is very rich and porky. After all my yapping, this tonkotsu ramen gets my trophy emoji for the best tonkotsu ramen I've tried so far! 🎊🏆🎊 But no yeah seriously it's that good. Life-changing even. I don't wanna be that guy that's like "yeah I've tried lots of ramen and I say this one is good" so go and try it. Go see for yourself. Thank you so much if you read this far and pls go support the very nice people at...

The Great: the design and aesthetics for this restaurant are top notch. It’s so pretty inside it feels out of place for the area, and that’s a good thing. They really set the bar high for restaurant design in the area. The takoyaki is incredible. Order it. The alcoholic drinks look really great.

The Okay: The ramen is good. Is it $17 per bowl good? I don’t believe so but I’ve lived down the street for 8 years and this area is lacking another dedicated ramen restaurant so I don’t see high price being an issue. My wife and I both found the takoyaki to be better than the ramen.

The Not-So-Good: Massive identity crisis here trying to be a high-end restaurant/club/bar/to-go place.

Before you even walk in there is club music blasting outside. Then you walk in and it’s blasting even louder. It’s so loud in the restaurant you can’t hear the person across from you. Even the waiter for the table next to us was complaining that it was too loud. On top of that the entire staff welcomes everyone very loudly (this is normal in a Japanese restaurant) whenever someone walks in. So you’ve got loud club music blasting and random staff screaming. It was a bit much for such a small place with bad acoustics.

The menu is interesting as the main dishes (ramen) take up just 1/4th of a page while the rest of the menu is drinks and appetizers and ramen options. Really odd setup. They also give you an additional drink menu. They didn’t know what a lemon sour was despite really pushing their Japanese roots. There is an entire back page advertising vegetarian options compared to the 1/4 page with the main ramen dishes. Just super strange.

The restaurant gives this vibe that it wants to be a club or place you go to drink but also advertises ordering food to go and the servers wear t-shirts while management is in business attire. It kind of reminds me of Ra-Sushi where I could see them pulling all the tables at the end of the night and just turning it into a club. It was odd.

All in all I would maybe try again but the most important part, the ramen, didn’t exactly live up to the image of the...

I went to this restaurant for lunch based on a recommendation from a friend, and unfortunately, it was a disappointing experience. We ordered karaage and ramen, but even after waiting 25 minutes, our food still hadn’t arrived. Meanwhile, a table that came in after us had their appetizers served before us. I decided to ask the server, Jojo, what was going on. (I'm not sure whether it is real name or not, but the name was given by the manager)

It wasn’t until 30 minutes after we ordered that the karaage finally arrived. If the order had accidentally been missed, a simple explanation would have been enough, especially since we were in a time crunch. Instead, Jojo just brought the karaage out with no explanation and immediately started making excuses in a rude, dismissive tone. There was no sincere apology, and when we mentioned we were in a hurry, Jojo sarcastically told us, “Take it to-go if you’re in a rush.”

When we asked why the table next to us was served first, Jojo responded defensively with, "Who said it was your fault?" and continued to act with a poor attitude throughout the entire interaction. Instead of addressing our concerns respectfully, Jojo was combative and dismissive, making an already frustrating situation even worse.

It’s one thing to be unhelpful, but to be rude and dismissive when a customer is simply asking for an explanation is completely unprofessional. We were made to feel like we were in the wrong for questioning the delay, which was incredibly frustrating.

After that, Jojo didn’t return to our table, and another server brought the check. The manager did apologize and promised to take better care of us, which helped redeem the situation somewhat. The other servers were friendly, and the food itself was good. But as long as Jojo is working there, I won’t be returning. I honestly didn’t want to leave a tip at all, but I’m glad the manager handled the situation well. It’s unfortunate that such poor service overshadowed what could have been a nice meal. 조조라는 서버가 너무...