Toba Sushi and Ramen — Restaurant in Kalamazoo

This is a RAMEN review. I don't eat fish because I am allergic to many varieties, but I have spent a lot of time in Japan and I love ramen, so I wanted to leave a full ramen review.

First off, I have thought Kalamazoo has needed a ramen place for over a decade and it has been a dream of mine to open my own someday. I have had a lot of ramen in places like Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Detroit and San Francisco. Toba is definitely among the top tier of ramen that I have had in the US!!

So let's talk about all the things Toba gets right:

The atmosphere! It is uncanny how similar Toba looks like the designs I have imagined. It feels like an actual ramen bar in Japan. With the open chef counter behind the bar, the decorative lanterns hanging from the ceiling, down to the art on the walls. The wait staff is also very friendly and helpful.

The menu has an excellent selection of traditional Japanese sushimi and soups, including udon. I did not see any alcohol, so maybe they are still awaiting a liquor license (or maybe intend not to have one?), but there were several different kinds of tea offered. I had green tea with my meal and I believe it was macha, but the customer could benefit from the restaurant adding what type of green tea it is to the menu.

Now, let's talk about the ramen. I'll preface this by saying I have a high bar for ramen and the ren at Toba is great, so please understand that while I will be critical, this is still an excellent bowl of ramen! BEST IN TOWN!

I ordered the Toba ramen which is their house broth with chashu pork and soft boiled egg. The broth is ACE, 10/10! It is easily the shining jewel here. It is creamy, frothy and flavorful. The softboiled egg was also perfect and had the correct umami flavor from a soy-based marinade. The pork, mushrooms, scallions, etc were all great as well. These were the things Toba gets right. The one flavor that I found strange and did not enjoy was caramelized onion. It's very sweet and a shocking change of gears from the salty, umami flavors. There were also a couple things missing that could really give it that authentic touch which is seaweed and narutomaki (fish cake). The last thing to talk about is the noodles. Noodles are the hardest part to get right, because you either need to make them onsite or order them refrigerated from like Chicago or maybe Detroit. The noodles are obviously dry packaged and thus not very flavorful. I can see why a lot of r ramen restaurants do this, because wet or fresh noodles are very expensive, but it's just not authentic ramen without it. I would pay a few extra dollars per bowl for fresh noodles.

So there you have it, my exhaustive ramen review!...

First of all. This place is filthy.

The table and seat has a layer of grime on it. It’s tolerable. However, their bowls and wooden plates also have a thick layer of grime on it. Very sticky.

I am not sure where did they get their table. Which is so unstable and every time you put or take something from it. It looks like an earth quake is occurring.

Their food taste wise is mediocre, excluding the fact that it may not even be eatable base on the gross sticky dinnerware. We had Ramen, Kani salad, Takoyaki, Volcano Roll and Ikura Nigiri.

In the menu, they mention their ramen broth took 10 hours of cook time. But I am sure it’s from packaged broth from vendors. They didn’t cook it on site. That’s sad. Noodle couldn’t spread well and sticking to each others. The chicken breast taste is fine, but we were expecting chashu listed on the menu.

Takoyaki is also from package, not house made, a bit overprice for store brand food item. The shaved dry salmon for garnish is in good size, however very hard to chew.

Volcano roll and Spicy Kani salad are similar item. The Spicy Kani salad is the imitation crab salad on top of the volcano roll. Honestly the taste is ok, the problem is the Kani. It is old and dry, and I suspect those are the lowest quality Kani they are using. For a suggestion, put cucumber in your kani salad and spend a little more on the ingredients. The volcano suffered from same issue.

Ikura nigiri is no exception, disappointing. It came in a dirty plate. The two pieces of nigiris were in different sizes and the seaweed wasn’t able to stick to the rice. The salmon roe taste a little off also.

The server is nice, just forgot to give us utensils even after the appetizer arrived the table. Beside that she is fine.

Almost forgot to mention their water. It come with some sort of funny taste. Not recommended.

For people who want to try this place. My recommendation is don’t go. For the restaurant owner, my recommendation is wash your dishes and...

Update: It was a bad experience on 02/13, but the owner Jin couldn’t have handled it better. I cannot express how phenomenal the experience was after the owner reached out to rectify our concerns after our initial visit. He covered our dinner and even provided dessert!! I am so blown away. Thank you for exceeding my expectations and also making my bday dinner tonight that much better. Our server Ryan tonight was 1000000/10 stars - AMAZING! Not only that, both servers were attentive. Thank you Toba owner Jin, and server Ryan for making up for the other night. Cannot recommend Toba more!! Thank you 🙏

UPDATE: TOBA reached out to rectify the review. We will be going back, thank you Toba!

We were JUST seated about 20 minutes ago, ignored so we walked out. After we were seated, the server said they would bring us water. They didn’t end up bringing water or even acknowledging us again. I understand you’re busy, it’s the day before Valentines Day. But maybe don’t seat people? This isn’t the even worst part. There were only 2 servers who continued to serve everyone around us. At one point, one of the servers gave another table water. (We never got ours). Worst part: As we were walking out, the server (who didn’t seat us) asked if everything was alright. And then the chefs thanked us for coming in and said bye.

I came here last month with a friend from out of town, and the service was excellent and food was top notch. This left a bad taste in my mouth because I love...