Uncle — Restaurant in Denver

I have not visited the original Uncle, but this new location is much more convenient, so we decided to check it out. The restaurant is spacious and takes up the corner of the building, but the entrance is odd and obscure. The address is in very large letters, "95 SOUTH PENNSYLVANIA," but there is only a small ramen bowl and a tiny, "UNCLE," at the bottom left. These are on a glass wall to the left of the entrance. The door itself is completely unmarked.

Once you negotiate a very cramped foyer and go through the second door into the restaurant, you find a bright and airy, contemporary space with huge windows, an open kitchen, a high ceiling, and blonde furniture. The space is L-shaped with counter seating in front of the kitchen and lots of tables. There's a bar to the right of the entrance, but it's just a workstation without seating.

The menu includes sushi rolls, small plates, buns, and ramen. We started with the pork and cabbage dumplings which came in an elegant bowl, sitting in a pool of soy, chili oil, scallions, and cilantro. These were quite tasty with a bit of a kick.

We each ordered the duck ramen as our main course on the recommendation of our charming and enthusiastic server. This has a chicken and pork-based shoyu broth with confit duck leg, arugula, corn, a soft-poached egg, Japanese seven spice togarashi (a classic spice blend with heat, citrus, and umami), scallions, and noodles, of course.

The broth was very flavorful and the shichimi (togarashi) did the trick. The presentation was beautiful and the ingredients were fine. The soft-poached egg was perfect. Confit seems ubiquitous on menus these days, but it is a difficult, time-consuming process to handle correctly. I did not find the "confit" duck that great. It was OK, but definitely not as tender and flavorful as it could have been.

My elderly friend had a hard time with the soup. The presentation was pretty authentic with a whole egg, very long strands of noodles, and large pieces of the duck. Even with a fork he had difficulty negotiating this. It's probably a general comment about ramen, but if you're not experienced with chopsticks, it can be difficult to eat.

The staff was extremely friendly, efficient, and knowledgeable. The tables were kept spotless at all times, the food came out in a timely way, and everything ran well. It was a...

Ordered the Tsukemen ramen, which was really fantastic. Our awesome waitress told me that it was non-traditional and that the broth and noodles were served separately and that additional broth would be brought mid meal as a warm up, since the noodles are served cold. They brought the warm up broth mid meal, but it was a different color. I figured it was fine and poured a bit into the existing broth. Unfortunately, it was a completely different broth that changed the entire flavor profile of the original broth in a negative way. I simply assumed they’d brought the incorrect broth by accident and alerted our waitress. It was at this point that things a took a very weird turn.

The manager came over and explained that the completely flavor profile changing broth that was brought mid-meal was the “style” and that they were very sorry that what I ordered “wasn’t for everyone.” The tone was extremely condescending and made me feel like I was somehow inferior. When I asked if I could just have some more of the original broth she said that “the chef would charge me for a second set of that ramen if I wanted more of the original broth, though they could offer you something else that is more your taste.” This doubled down on the condescending nature of the entire interaction.

Finally, the bill came and we put down two cards to split. The other party we were with tried to use a gift card tied to their phone number. The manager looked it up and said there was no balance on the card, even though the other party knew there were remaining funds. When the other party asked about the past transactions, questioning the lack of balance, the manager proceeded to toss the cards back on table, told us we didn’t have to pay for anything, and told us never to come back. Unfortunately we didn’t have cash so we couldn’t even tip our waitress.

Uncle has great ramen and our original waitress was amazing, but this experience was just crazy. I have never experienced anything like it. I will be going elsewhere to avoid the holier than though hipster management and attitude...

We’ve been loyal customers for years and have always enjoyed the food here—it’s consistently delicious and full of bold, exciting flavors. That said, our experience during this recent visit left us disappointed and frustrated.

We ordered one of our usual favorites, the Dan Dan Noodles, and as we’ve done in the past, requested that the peanuts be left off. This time, we were told they could not accommodate that request because they want the dish to remain “authentic.” Strangely, we were allowed to remove corn from another dish in the same order, so the policy on modifications felt inconsistent at best.

When the Dan Dan Noodles arrived, it became clear that the peanuts weren’t integrated into the sauce or cooked into the dish—they were simply sprinkled on top as a garnish. So the refusal to leave them off felt unnecessarily rigid, especially since it would have been an easy adjustment.

Adding to the confusion, the menu lists Chinese broccoli as part of the dish, but both of our orders came without it. If the kitchen is insisting on sticking to the listed ingredients for authenticity, it was frustrating to see that standard not applied to their own preparation.

We even called their other location, where we usually dine, and were told that while the dish does include peanuts, they are happy to leave them off when requested. It’s disappointing to see this level of inconsistency between locations, especially when it affects the guest experience.

We still love the flavors and creativity of the food, but this kind of inflexibility—paired with a lack of follow-through on their own standards—makes us...