Matsuharu Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in El Paso

To start off with this place doesn't serve sushi. There is a sign on the door that says so and the sushi bar that's inside seems that they do not have someone to fill that position.

Don't let this place fool you. The location its in doesn't reflect on what's inside.

Now onto the Food.

As this place is just labeled as a Japanese restaurant, it was a great find to see that they serve ramen here. I didn't think too much about it until I actually went there to eat.

The place is small and has a lot of Japanese fixtures to make you feel right at home. A Japanese anime was playing on the big tv they had and the smell coming out of the kitchen was heavenly.

Looking at the menu, this place had all the unique items of a TRUE Japanese place. Cold tofu, croquette, gyoza, and of course a wide menu of Ramen.

I ordered Gyoza, Croqutte, and and Onigiri for my starters. Even though it did take a bit of time (due to the place was getting super busy and packed) when the food came out it was awesome. It reminded me of how my grandma would make it and bring it out with cold tonkatsu sauce. This place has set the bar for all Japanese places in the El Paso area (just by the starters)

Now the Ramen... I ordered the Charshu ramen with extra charshu (it has another name on the menu but I cant remember it). The broth was heavy and savory which was a bug surprise for me seeing how I thought it was going to be a light broth. the noodles were firm and not too soft and complemented the soup base. Its a good thing I ordered extra Charshu due to it was so soft and tender. It didn't melt in your mouth but was soft enough to soak up the soup base and get both flavors while eating.

Surprisingly no eggs or naruto came with this bowl. A bit odd but it's not gonna change my rating.

The ramen menu is about 10+ bowls you can choose from and I think this weekend I'm heading back to try a different bowl and make my judgement again.

As far as I can tell, our waitress does speak Japanese and can have a conversation with you if you choose (I didn't due to I speak at a 6th grade level)

Overall another great Japanese place I found that serves good, quality ramen and service with a...

My family decided to break our tradition of Pizza night for Japanese food because we were all craving it bad. We decided to go on an adventure and try someplace new and we picked Matsuharu and honestly it was a great experience. It's located in a small shopping center and the decorations inside were cute. The seating was mixed matched but there was enough I believe. They had a TV on with some Studio Ghibli movies going on which was great. I will say they didn't have any beer or alcohol BUT they do offer BYOB they said so something to remember for next time. We had edamame as a appetizer and it was good. A few were not as fresh as the rest but overall we ate it all. My youngest was super excited that they had onigiri and he asked for a plum one. He wasn't the biggest fan but he is excited to go back and try the other 2 flavors they have, bonito flakes and salmon. My youngest ordered tempura udon, my oldest Miso ramen, my husband got the Katsu and I got the Nabeyaki udon. The food was great at their Katsu was so on point! I forgot to take pictures of our order this time around because we were so hungry! Over all we really loved the flavors and it will definitely be one of our go to when we are craving some ramen, or Katsu.

Now the reason they lost a star, our bill came out to about est$70 for just drinks and the food. They are on the pricier end but maybe that's what they need to mark up their plates for this area but I don't necessarily agree that it was worth that price. The service was super chaotic and I really felt for our server. She was the only waitress in the restaurant and all the tables ended up full. We went multiple times without a refill for our waters just because she was busy with all the other tables. She was really nice and did the best she could but it did leave us creeping close to hangry by the time we got out food. We still tipped her well because she really was taking care of the front of house almost on her own.

I mean, overall we will go back but it would probably be as a treat instead of a weekly or every...

Tbh. I had never heard of this place. I had eaten at a really great Ramen place by UTEP and thought maybe this place would be good. Wrong. When we got there it was really humid inside, and took a little while to be seated. Looking around its dark, there's a grey layer of dust on top of the japanese style roof shingles 🤢 our table was a little sticky. Once we were seated it took a while for us to get the menu, and to ask what the items on the menu were. Our drinks were water, and the water tasted pretty awful so we paid for some bottled Calpico drink. After the owner explained 3 popular ramen bowls to us, we received our ramen and were definitely underwhelmed. Both ramen bowls tasted the exact same. Except that my husband's ramen had only 4 old, rubbery slices of pork.Mine had 1 rubbery, old tasting pork, a flake of dry seaweed, onion, and fishcake. The taste is nothing special, its a beef broth with noodles almost like from a ramen noodle packet. The old sushi bar looked cluttered and unclean. Overall, I can say we won't be back. After trying a really GREAT bowl of ramen at another ramen place by UTEP. I couldn't believe how cheap this ramen tasted, and that it was more expensive?? At the other Ramen place we've eaten I force myself to finish the ramen it's so damn good, here I ate the noodles and some broth and I couldn't bring myself to finish a bowl that was so basic. After I got home I felt bloated and my stomach bubbly. I usually hate to give bad reviews, but I just can't understand why this place has so many stars. You want great ramen... There is a amazing ramen place right by UTEP. Don't waste your "cash only" time...