Yoshiharu Ramen — Restaurant in Irvine

My boyfriend loves ramen! Any opportunity to try something new or go to a restaurant that just opened, we are game to go. We called in advance to check if they were open for indoor dining and if they were busy. They were open and only had one other party in their dining room, so we made our way there stat.

Upon arrival, we were promptly seated with menus. As we browsed our options, I noticed that they started getting pretty busy with take out orders, which I felt, caused the service to slow if you're dining inside since takeout seemed to take priority. There was only one cashier, one server and several cooks. The restaurant is pretty open concept with partial partitions between the kitchen and dining room, so it gets pretty noisy when the staff are speaking loudly or playing their own music.

As for food, boyfriend ordered the Tonkotsu Shoyu Ramen ($12.50). The ramen is a pork bone broth flavored with soy sauce and garlic paste. Toppings included pork chashu, green onion, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, wakame seaweed and sesame seeds.

I opted to try their bento box - Salmon Steak bento ($15.50). The bento included rice, miso soup, 2pc California roll, salad, tempura and salmon on a bed of shredded cabbage. The salmon was grilled, which gave a nice smoky flavor and seems to be lightly brushed with sauce. I normally don't eat white rice, but did not see any options to substitute so I didn't ask.

Portion was filling for both of us, but overall experience was lacking. We had ordered a takoyaki with our meal, but it was never entered. We inquired about it mid-meal and they said they would check on it. However, we finished our meal and it was still nowhere to be seen, so we informed them to just cancel it. In addition, the other table that was there received items they didn't order, so it wasn't an isolated issue. It's possibly they are still working out the kinks and trying to find their balance, but I don't see myself returning...

On Sunday evening, after my son finished his Taekwondo tournament in Tustin, I searched for nearby Ramen restaurants and drove my family to Yoshiharu Ramen.

To my surprise, only one server was attending to 80% of the customers. Since my kids were hungry, we decided not to spend time going to another restaurant. Therefore, we ordered the following items:

• Tonkatsu Black ($18.00) • Tonkatsu Spicy Black ($18.50) • Rib Eye Beef Bento ($20.00)

After waiting for 20 minutes, two bowls of Ramen arrived. I almost finished my meal when my wife and daughter realized the Bento had not arrived yet. I asked the server about it, and she apologized, explaining that it was taking longer than expected.

Advice to the Owner: To ensure better business, please consider hiring more servers and not cutting back on labor costs. Customers don’t like waiting.

If the waiting time improves, we will...

We’ve been to the flagship in Orange countless times. It’s never let us down, and so we were naturally apprehensive about venturing out from that location.

This location on Portola Pkwy in Irvine is very nicely decorated, and sits in a pretty little shopping center, behind a fountain. Nicer atmosphere than the flagship.

Spoiler Alert: The Spicy Tonkotsu Miso tasted every bit as good as the bowls served up on Tustin Avenue.

That would’ve been enough to make us happy. But Zack was our cashier and server. He wore a smile during the entire visit, which always enhances or transforms a dining experience. He answered every request with a smile and with action. And there were many requests (we brought our two year-old for his first ramen experience).

This location, though a bit out of the way for us, will probably get our ramen business as much as the...