Otani Noodle - Uptown — Restaurant in Cleveland

There is nothing better to warm your soul than a visit to Otani Noodle. The gentleman who I presume is the owner is such a kind guy.

When dining in, he insists you sit and relax, and he brings your food to you. For many years, I've eaten here, and it always hits the spot, no matter the season or the mood.

After eating, the same kind staff will come over and check on you, and sometimes a kind pat on the shoulder, making sure all is good and tasty. When you visit Otani, you feel at home.

The only thing I wish, is the price is a little high at $15 for my favorite bowl. But at the same time, it's still worth it. It's hard to find a ramen place as good as this. I would advise not raising prices much higher though.

When ordering delivery or take out, through various platforms such as ubereats or even through their own loyalty app, the management also has such an additional piece of thought to their process. I was originally hesitant but so incredibly overjoyed to find that they actually will separate the broth from the noodles and ingredients to make sure things don't get too soggy and Squishy and transit. They also seem to be very sturdy containers avoiding any leaks and saving your delivery driver any headaches. If nothing else, that says a lot about the thoughtfulness that this company takes into ensuring a great experience no matter what.

Thanks for being a place to warm up from the cold, or cool off after a chaotic day. The staff is so amazing and I'll keep coming for...

We visited on a Wednesday afternoon for a late lunch in mid-April 2025. The place was completely empty. It was the weird time after lunch but before dinner. We had just checked into our hotel and walked to go get food.

We placed our order online for instore pickup. We arrived and got everything no problems. The restaurant was nicely decorate it was just weird cause it was completely empty.

They keep the soup broth separate when you do takeout which is nice so the noodles don't get soggy. We were also able to reheat the broth in the hotel microwave too. It was a cold day and the 15 min walk back chilled a lot of the food. If we knew it was going to be empty, we would've brought the kids and eaten in the restaurant.

We ordered the pork belly ramen, char-sui ramen, pork tonkatsu ramen and kids miso soup ramen. The pork belly was just okay. It was really thick cut and some of it was a bit dry. The char-sui was the way to go. One of my kids was sad that they didn't have the additional tonkatsu sauce for his pork cutlet in his ramen. The picky youngest ate his miso soup ramen no questions asked. All the broths were very thick and rich.

We would definitely eat from here again. There were a few other things on the menu we'd like to try. So maybe if we come back to the area to visit, this will be on our food...

Kinda cramped. They use plastic dishes and forks. I paid $45 for a bottled water, a Japanese soda, 2 bowls of ramen, and a side of gyoza. I wasn’t floored by the ramen. I’ve made better at home, there was no depth of flavor, lip smackiness wasn’t there, I had to put soy sauce in it… a couple of times. The guy taking orders (the owner probably) didn’t really speak very good English and got my order wrong and didn’t tell me I had to grab my own drinks. The wallpaper was cool. The bathroom is a singular unisex toilet, not great for kids as there is no changing station and there are cleaning supplies just laying around. My suggestion is that a place calling themselves a noodle restaurant maybe they should have more than just ramen like try adding Udon or something. That Gyoza was pretty good though, maybe add a couple more flavors of gyoza and some more dipping sauces to the menu, a small change that doesn’t cost much...