Shokku Ramen — Restaurant in Houston

WARNING: I will be listing every issue I encountered at this restaurant.

My experience at Shokku Ramen last night (January 31st, 2025) was a very negative one. With poor quality of food and subpar service, I am unhappy with how things turned out.

While we were given a table quickly due to being a large party (at the time, 6, which became 7), it was very clear that that the staff was overwhelmed. The problem was that there was more than enough staff members to handle a restaurant of that size, even if it was extremely busy. That being said, our waitress was new and had trouble communicating to us in English. In normal instances, that's no problem. This is Texas, so it's not surprising that there may be a non-English speaker in the workplace. What was unfortunate is that they gave her possibly the biggest table of the night. What went wrong with our waitress is that due to her weaker English, she was not able to fully understand our food choices and had to have us show her the entry on the menu as opposed to knowing the menu item- an example was the Yuzu Kawaii beverage. I had to pull up the menu after telling her the name, despite that being the only beverage with "yuzu" in the name. This lack of knowledge of the menu also resulted in incorrect notation of ingredients, so a few of us had incorrect things put into our ramen. This is a HUGE issue as a mistake like that can lead to an allergic reaction and through that, a lawsuit.

Here is every issue I had with the food: Spinach was entered for my ramen, which I did not order. (This was on the receipt as well) I had ordered the bamboo shoots for my ramen, which due to spinach being inputted instead, did not come with my ramen. Once I had told them that the two were swapped, they attempted to fix it, but the bamboo that they used were from a can. You can REALLY tell when bamboo shoots come from a can due to the 'juice' that saturates the shoots. It was so potent that it actually caused my ramen to be inedible as it completely changed the flavor of the broth. The bamboo shoots they did eventually add were just dropped in as a clump rather than placed in with intent. This further showed that it was just from a can as opposed to being properly prepared. TO BE CLEAR, bamboo shoots from a can are okay so long as they are washed and prepared properly. I had ordered "Mixed Mushrooms" for my ramen as well. These too were from a can and again, you can tell. Friend A did not receive his Oni spice level initially and we had to ask the waitress for it. It took about 10 minutes after receiving his ramen for it to be brought. Friend B did not receive bamboo shoots despite ordering it initially. They brought them out in a little sauce cup and like my issue with the bamboo shoots, it was so evident that they were from a can. Friend C ordered chicken fried rice. Not only was the fried rice not at all stir fried, but... it was such a poor attempt at fried rice that they had to comp the entire dish. It was oily, lacked flavor, and there were clumps of rice that were still COLD. He received his fried rice at the end. He waited over an hour and a half to receive uncooked "chicken fried rice". I even tried it myself and confirmed that it was bland and uncooked. Friend D also ordered bamboo shoots in her ramen and could tell that there was something wrong with them. She let Friend C try a piece and he was visibly revolted. We had ordered Edamame beans and they did not include an extra bowl for the shells. Very abnormal given that's a common appetizer for Japanese restaurants.

Despite these issues, the appetizers, beverages, broth, chashu, and noodles were good on their own. Although, the negatives REALLY outshine the positives. I think our waitress' trainer wanted to make up for the poor service, so he brought us two glasses of Asahi. While a nice offer, beer is not a way out of this. At the end of the meal, I brought the attention to the management. While they were receptive, the amount comp'ed was nowhere near enough for the poor quality.

I am out...

I appreciate the atmosphere of this place as I myself am an anime nerd. The staff was nice to everyone in my party and for the most part, our experience here was a good one.

However, it was extremely hard to hear what the waiter was saying to us (I think it was a combination of there being semi loud music playing, him wearing his mask, and also him being a bit soft spoken) so we had to ask him to repeat a lot of what he said. He took his time coming to check on our table, which I understood because I think they were a bit understaffed at the time (a Friday night).

We tried to order a couple things that they said they were out of (shrimp pops being one of them, can’t remember what the other item was) so we ordered other things. When we finally got our main courses, my own ramen broth was not as hot as I was expecting it to be, and the egg that came with the bowl was cold (the cold eggs were with every bowl on the table). Ramen still tasted okay (I got the Oxtail bowl), but the meat was a bit dry. Everyone else seemed to enjoy their food.

I would not recommend getting sake here as when I ordered it, I was expecting hot sake in a small pourer with a refillable cup (as is the case with other places), but when they served it to me I received a small glass (like you would put whiskey in) with a little bit of COLD sake barely covering the bottom of the glass and they charged $8 for it. Maybe they serve a different brand of more expensive sake here?

At the end we ordered dessert (all flavors of mochi ice cream and matcha cheesecake) which was all delicious. 10/10 would eat all of the dessert again.

Then we got to choose an anime character figurine to take a picture with to commemorate our time at the restaurant (we chose Goku) and that was pretty cool. A little side note to the restaurant though: the waiter was telling us not to touch the Goku figurine itself because it was easily breakable, and to just touch the platform it was standing on, which was not a problem because we understand how delicate some of those figurines can be. But there was nothing keeping the figurine tethered to that platform, so it swayed back and forth and almost fell off a couple times when we moved it. He did say another figurine already broke, so it may be a good idea to look into something like a reserved space for people to go to the figurines and take their pics, instead of bringing the figurines to the table and leaving them there unattended. It might also look a bit better for everyone’s pictures when there’s no table trash in the background (lol).

Overall, I would try this place again when they have a bit more time to settle in and get everything together. But not again any time soon. Keep up the good work everyone, this place has the...

Shokku Ramen is an anime-themed ramen restaurant from Las Vegas. It opened in the Heights on June 4th, 2021. The atmosphere is kind of loud with J-Pop music blasting and anime projected on the wall. I checked it out with my wife on a Saturday evening at about 10 pm. The location in Las Vegas is open 24/7, but the Houston location is currently closing at 11 pm (as of August 22nd, 2021) with plans to be 24/7 in the future.

When we arrived, we saw that they had free private parking spaces out front and more in the back. The restaurant seemed busy, but we were able to grab a table right away. The place seemed very discombobulated and kind of dingy. Waters and soft drinks were all served in cheap plastic cups. They had a full bar, so I decided to get a drink:

+Pikachu Rita (tequila, mango, and triple sec) for $12 - The server told us this was their most popular cocktail. It tasted very cheap with minimal alcohol. I would avoid getting drinks here at all costs. They are overpriced and taste like sugar water. 1/5

We tried to order appetizers, but they were out of the Kara-agé (Japanese fried chicken bites). They had a limited supply of chicken they were keeping for their ramen. We ordered Shinigami ramens from their Signature Bowls menu:

+Shinigami Ramen (spicy black garlic oil with Shinigami spice served with yellow noodles, pork, kara-agé, soy cured egg, woodear mushrooms, corn, and scallions) for $16 - The broth was very tasty. This ramen comes with Shinigami sauce on the side, but the broth is quite spicy on its own. The soy cured egg was pretty tasty. The pork felt dry and was tough to chew through. This ramen bowl is massive and comes with a lot of noodles, so be prepared to eat or take leftovers home. 4/5

+Chocolate Mochi Ice Cream (1 free if you check-in on Yelp) - This was a nice way to end the night. 4/5

Overall, Shokku Ramen was a bit of a disappointment. Restaurants in Las Vegas are usually really good, so it was a letdown to see Houston being operated in this manner. With such expensive food and drinks, I would expect to have water served in glass, not plastic. I saw a couple get seated at a table and leave right away when they felt something was off. Service is really slow, and we were told the entire waitstaff was new. They’ve been open for about 3-months, so I understand there is still a lot to work out. The broth of my Shinigami Ramen was my favorite part, but unfortunately, I wouldn’t recommend checking them...