silverlake ramen kirkland — Restaurant in Kirkland

Ordered the Blaze Tonkotsu. Only flavor you could taste is "rich/fatty" and nothing else interesting. Couldn't taste any sort of aromatics or umami notes. Ordered extra hot (or whatever their spiciest option was) so at least the broth tasted like "rich spicy". Extra hot was milder than I was expecting, but was on the spicier side for the Seattle area. Probably a 4 out 5 spice for a spicy Indian dish. Personally I wouldn't recommend getting that spice level, not because it's too spicy but because it doesn't taste like much. Their chili paste, much like their broth, doesn't have a lot of flavor, and the spiciness started to get annoying after a while. The chashu and seasoned egg were also incredibly bland. There was hardly any coloring on either to suggested that it had at least been seasoned. On the plus side it acted as a good palate cleanser for the broth and chili paste, a similar effect to eating a radish drizzled in fat. To be fair the egg had a bit more flavor since it tasted like egg, the chasu however tasted like nothing. The noodles were a good thickness and cooked nicely. Personally I prefer a slightly firmer and chewier noodle but I'm very happy with what they're currently using. It still has a bit of a chew where it needs at least one or two chews before swallowing, but I prefer a bit more . All the employees were incredibly friendly but the service was terrible. They were fairly busy and seemed to have only one hostess who also had the task of waiting on every table. Eventually someone who assume was the manager helped out. Took 10 mins to get a refill for my water and you'd assume they would pay a little bit more attention to that if you order something so spicy. If they could hire one or two more people to work the floor I think the service complaints would be completely addressed. I would only pay for this again if a friend forced me to go. If it was 10 bucks I might go on my own but ~20 bucks for a bowl of ramen this bad? No way. It at least doesn't taste like generic pork stock, but it doesn't taste that much better.

Edit: The menu does not call the pork belly a chashu, so this might actually be an unseasoned piece of pork lol. Ramen experience tells me that it has to be a chashu, but Silverlake Ramen makes me...

When I lived in Kirkland, many years ago, The Totem Lake shopping area was a wasteland. I never would have believed that it would be rescued and turn into the bustling area that it is today. Not only was I surprised to find Silver Ramen there, but I was shocked at how hard it was to get through the parking lot and find a space. My son and I wove our way through the car and pedestrian traffic for quite a while before we scored a spot in the parking garage. We are huge ramen fans, so we were looking forward to trying this place near my son’s house. We went at lunch time on a Sunday so we expected to have to wait for a table. Fortunately, the place was only half full, so we got seats right away. The menu had the usual ramen place items. We ordered karaage and gyoza appetizers to go with a tonkotsu ramen and a garlic and truffle one. The food came out quickly, all at the same time. We shoved things around on the table to fit the feast on it. The gyoza was fried crispy (We were given the option of steamed or fried) and the karaage was crunchy. Both came with a spicy mayonnaise sauce. I like to add in a little soy sauce for extra umami. There was a little box of items on the table where we found napkins and chopsticks. I’m sure we could have asked for forks, but chopsticks are not a problem for us. We easily scarfed up the appetizers and the sauce. The ramen broth was great. Full of flavor. There was a bit too much spinach on top. I would have liked some of it traded out for bean sprouts or bamboo shoots. The boiled egg half was nice, especially after I dosed it with a glug of soy sauce. The pork belly was a thick chunk. I like fatty meat, so that was a treat for me. I also enjoyed the sheet of nori that decorated the bowl. The noodles were good, but not perfect. They were a bit undercooked and lacked flavor. I prefer wavy noodles to straight ones in ramen. These were hard to keep from slipping out of the chopsticks. All in all, it was a good meal. It should be - the bill was huge. My son treated this time, using up his entire dining out budget for the month. It’s not super high for ramen in the area, but it was a lot for lunch in general. We packed up, found the car and went home, well...

Perhaps you would expect the shoyu ramen broth to actually contain shoyu. Perhaps you are a fool.

The "shoyu broth" might well be Swanson's chicken stock, right out of the carton. There is, unfortunately, no trace of the eponymous shoyu to be found. Spinach and bamboo shoots perch sadly on top, apologetically, seemingly self-aware of their own lack of flavor. It is no fault of their own. Somewhere along the way, you take a bite of the nori. Basic. Straight out of the package. Yet somehow, it's the best part of the ramen before you, and you gratefully wolf it down. In spite of yourself, you wish you had another. You also wish the sad spinach and bamboo would just go away.

Your tablemate orders the spicy "On Fire" version, and you are both amused to see an entire half of a jalapeno pepper and a slice of lime in your broth. You are both decidedly less amused once you realize that neither of the two oddities managed to add any meaningful flavor.

You order the chicken karaage as an appetizer, in the process witnessing a true feat of magic. While you are eating it, you find it to be markedly below average. Once your ramen arrives, however, voila! You change your mind and realize the karaage is actually the highlight of the meal. The bar is on the floor.

You notice that the restaurant serves churros for dessert. In that context, you accidentally misread the offering "Soboro Bowl" as "Sombrero Bowl." You are kind of disappointed that it is not, in fact, called a Sombrero Bowl, which would have been a better vehicle for the jalapeno and lime anyways.

The spinach and bamboo are still there =[

The saddest part of the whole experience is that the noodles themselves are actually quite nice, with just the right amount of chewiness and bite. It helps things about as much as a couple shots of premium liquor in a tub full of frat house Jungle Juice - not that much.

As the bill comes, you note that your meal is somehow more expensive than Kizuki. You cry inside. You pause momentarily and consider taking the poor spinach and bamboo home with you; they have no future here, a feeling that you often identify with. You leave with the understanding that this is now something...