Kyuramen - Eagan — Restaurant in Eagan

My wife and I ate there Sunday afternoon, pretty cool, clean, bright with warm greetings. Ting Ting was our very friendly server.

There is a button on the wall with words on it that are so small my wife needed to use her phone camera to read it. ORDER, CALL, PAY I think. They should tell you about the unique button because we waited a while to order.

The beverages and apps came quickly, the food came too quickly as if were prepared well ahead of time. The two pieces of pork in my Bao were moist and delish however the bun was way to large for the portion size and it (make me a little mad and disappointed ) small piece of red leaf(not like in the picture), maybe add julienne carrots, white radish? IDK?

The Takoyaki is just about as good as everybody else in the Twin cities.

We ordered the Yakatori platter, Ting Ting said we are out of scallops and substituting Tofu. I said that's a rip off, she said many people complain. We did settle for beef.

We ordered the Seafood Kamaneshi, Ting Ting said we are out of scallops and substituting Tofu, we settled on eel in its place. Unfortunately the really small shrimp were tough. In the rice which was flavourfull there were small square peices of I think cooked scrambled egg, the one I ate tasted spoiled.

When we drove away my innocent sweet wife said we are not going back to that place and then asked God for forgiveness for being judgmental.

Monday afternoon after my wife had encouraged me to call and speak to the owner I spoke with Annabell, she asked why and I said to give compliments and some constructive critism, she took my name and number and said he will call later, I never got a return call.

I really wanted to tell him/them personally.

Today is Tuesday, so I am unfortunately writing this.This is my first review ever of a restaurant and I love to give compliments to employees of any business or or bystander makes me feel good as well as hopefully the person or manager I am addressing.

I'm a retired Executive chef with over 40 years in foodservice. Ofcourse in my days I wanted to hear compliments and pass them on to my cooks and I was equally concerned with criticism and then decide on how to act on it.

Good and confident owners, managers, chefs should build up a relationship with the customers, which can be applied to any business to be successful and they should be able to receive positve and negative comments.

I have worked in many establishments west of the Missisippi river, lived in or vacationed in many countries including Japan. I used to work in a 4 star restaurant trying for a 5th which is so difficult, but we knew our customers by name and even kept files on them so that we could ANTICIPATE their wants and needs for their next visit.

Poor menu and poor management restaurants go out of business quickly.

I would have gone to Costco and bought scallops.

Maybe read these books,

"Who Moved My Cheese"

"Give Them The Pickle"

FYI several weeks ago we ate at a restaurant and on a plate was a hair (i'm shaved), I also witnessed a cook/foodservice employee wearing black FS gloves go into the bathroom and when he came out he was still wering those gloves. I did not write a review because the owner was able to listen...

After reading all the positive reviews, I was looking forward to dinning here, so I was poised to have a good experience. I was honestly surprised as well as disappointed, I can’t reconcile how do many others had good food and experiences and ours was so lacking. I ordered on the app, it indicated when our order was ready we would receive a notification. We got there and figured we would pop in when we got the notification, but after waiting awhile we decided to go in and it was sitting ready to go and probably had been for awhile because nothing was even faintly warm and we ate it quickly after picking up. We never got a notification. We came on the early side of dinner hour and they were already out of mango crepe cake and exchanged it for matcha, not what I wanted, I would have preferred they had left it out and refunded it. We ordered the soft shell crab rice burger, fried potato shrimp, chicken bao, and mango turned matcha crepe cake slice. Overall, I would say there were major seasoning issues. The soft shell crab burger: I liked the crispy rice patties, it was a nice piece of soft shell crab, fairly crispy, but a little more greasy than it should be, but the big let down was how utterly bland and under seasoned it was. I noticed in the menu its supposed to have pickled carrots and mayo on it, ours didn’t have any, some acid and mayo probably would have really helped. The fried crab needed a bit of salt regardless. There was cucumber on it, so much cucumber! over eight slices, which caused the whole sandwich to slip apart, and all the cucumbers to fall out, so end result it was just the crab and rice patties as a sandwich with a side of cucumber slices. The potato shrimp were cooked fine, but again totally lacking in seasoning, so bland, they were in dire need of salt. The dipping sauce it came with was also completely without any flavor, a total throw away. I didn’t see the chicken bao on the website menu, but it was in the app and we have eaten a lot of chicken bao at various other Japanese restaurants so we figured it was a safe bet, but alas. The chicken was tender, but it was just chicken and some pockets of outrageous spice (I say this being a regular consumer of spicy foods), but without any other seasoning to balance it. I think it’s source was the meager amount of sauce on the bao. The bun itself was a bit dry, I have definitely had softer more pillowy bao. I so wanted to like this place, we didn’t have time to sit down, but I was planning if the takeout was good coming back to dine in and order omurice or ramen, but after such a negative experience I can’t see returning. My family that shared the food felt the same, one of them mentioned they wished we would have just gotten chicken buns from our usual ramen place. Yeah, we...

When I heard and seen about this place online; I simply knew I had to visit. The first Japanese place I was aware of with omurice! I must have it! And this was my experience:

Upon entering, you enter a very lively atmosphere. The entrance is a little confusing as they have a in house boba store right next to the front door but once you walk further in you can see the whole restaurant and it’s beautifully decorated japanese style glory. Lovely seats and tables, small private rooms, a bar where you can watch the kitchen and chefs do work. I was quickly helped and told to find a seat by the bar for one person. I would have liked to maybe try out the private rooms, but maybe for next time I’ll ask. I wasn’t picky—so I sat at the bar which was quite comfortable, there was a pipe that just happened to serve as a foot rest on all the bar seats. The plating was organized neatly and very pleasantly.

I was handed a couple menus to look at, and prices seem solid. For a Japanese style restaurant you can usually expect about 10-20$ for a meal and maybe a bit more for drinks and appetizers. It seems like they meet this threshold fine and aren’t overpriced. There was a few combo options that actually looked like fair deals. Since I was here for omurice, I ordered the omurice Katsu combo which came with a drink.

Oh and I was also served with complimentary water, which came in this very cute jar cup. The water was pleasant and didn’t taste like trash tap so that’s always a huge plus. I was helped in a orderly fashion and got my food quickly.

The whole omurice presentation was delightful and fun, exactly what I expected. The omurice itself was great; but of course. You can’t really mess up rice and egg. It was still delightful all the same, I quite enjoyed the curry sauce. The Katsu is the only thing I do have to complain about a little bit—it was a bit too tough for my liking. Not sure if that was because of them not beating the meat in prep or overcooked. Not a big deal, but thought I’d mention.

I wasn’t helped or checked on again, they were fairly busy and I was in a corner of sorts at the bar so I can’t quite say I blame them. I went up to pay and left.

Overrall it was a great experience with a great atmosphere. I would love to come back and review their ramen as well; which I will add to this post when I do. I would definitely...