Tsaocaa Tea & Michi Ramen — Restaurant in Lakeland

I’m always excited when a new ramen place pops up in town. I don’t think they have been open very long so I jumped at the opportunity to give them a try.

My wife and I went around 6pm on a Tuesday. There was maybe one other table sat when we walked in but at least 5 employees standing in view of the entrance.

We were sat immediately by the hostess. We waited over 5 mins for anyone to come take our initial drink order. Very odd for an empty restaurant and a group of employees standing around.

I may be mistaken but it seemed like our server was taking care of one entire side of the restaurant. So before I fully dive into how poor the service was I should mention it was probably not entirely her fault. Poor planning and management is most likely to blame.

All these employees there and no one was helping this poor girl take orders or run food. Just standing at the entrance talking to one another while she worked her butt off. The hostess seemed especially useless considering the restaurant was pretty empty.

We finally were able to place our order:

1 Tonkatsu ramen 1 Black Miso Ramen 1 order of original Korean fried chicken 1 boba tea 1 beer

The chicken came out first.

I will say I think this was the highlight of the meal. Super crispy chicken and very moist on the inside. No complaints. Great menu item.

Our ramen came next.

My Tonkatsu was decent. The noodles were firm like they should be and the broth had a fair amount of depth to it. However the pork was hardly passable. Thin slices of low quality meat. You can tell ingredient wise this is where they chose to cut corners. It’s sad when you have all the building blocks of a good dish but choose to cut corners because of cost.

For reference I paid almost the same amount per bowl at Momofuku in NYC a few weeks ago and the difference was night and day.

So dollar for dollar this ramen was not great.

My wife got the black miso and the flavors were very thin and the pork was just as lousy. I just don’t understand how restaurants put ramen in their name and still fail to make a decent bowl.

My beer came out with the ramen. Kirin Ichiban is a great companion to ramen but sadly it was brought out in a bottle and no separate glass. I’ll let you decide how you feel about that. But the kicker is that the beer was almost ROOM TEMPERATURE!

Why is the beer warm in the first place and what decent server would even bring that to a table?

I hate to complain at restaurants so I just smiled and drank my beer.

Our server was mostly a no show once our food came. Once again she may have just been overbooked but it still resulted in bad service especially for a restaurant that wasn’t even half full.

I posted some pictures of a few of the dishes that were brought out with our food. You can see they have visibly large cracks in them. Not only were they sharp but they could have easily cracked more into our food.

Once again, why is the kitchen not catching this and why is the server bringing out broken dishes?

We politely asked for our bill and tipped the standard 20% regardless of service.

This place has all the trappings of a good place to eat.

Sterile but decent atmosphere. A good range of food,drink and dessert menus items.

On the surface this restaurant looks promising but just like their dishes once you begin your meal you start to see the cracks everywhere.

This restaurant has all the key indicators of a new restaurant attempting to maximize their profit margins by not being properly staffed, cutting corners on quality ingredients and using dish-ware that is visibly broken.

Restaurants don’t realize that by saving a few bucks here and there they end up irreversibly tarnishing their brand to the community.

If they don’t step their game up I can’t foresee them lasting the length of 2024 especially in a culturally tough market like north Lakeland.

At best I would say get some wings and a boba to go from here. don’t expect much if you dine in.

3/5 stars for poor service and a restaurant that can’t be bothered to put their best...

I was really hyped for this place, particularly for the boba and drinks. We came on a Sunday. I guess I heard so many great things about it. Anyways, I ordered the "milk strike" taro bubble milk, medium of $5.25. My friend ordered the "fruit milk tea" strawberry milk green tea for $5.95. When the drinks came out I was highly disappointed with the size difference. Nearly the same price and mine was 500ML hers was 700ML. I double checked with the hostess who confirmed it was the correct size. At this point whatever, I love taro and will try it! I was so disillusioned. Upon the first few sips it was pure whole milk. I mixed it/shaked it well. Could get some of the taro taste but it was like I was drinking a cup of cold milk. As I started getting towards the bottom, the taro started coming in but it was thick clumps of DRY or old taro powder that just wouldn't combine with my milk regardless of how much I stirred. I've never had that happen to me when drinking boba milk teas. So my guess is the taro powder was old? My friend was also very disappointed with her fruit drink, she kept saying it tasted like the Strawberry Hershey syrup heavily mixed in (50% sugar ordered). Even after constant stirring, all she could taste was heavy strawberry Hershey syrup. We also ordered mochi donuts. The donuts was AMAZING. Really loved the donuts. I really want to love this place and would love to have some great Taro boba nearby (it's a classic!). Maybe I'll swing in another time and try some other flavor. Just really sad they couldn't get it right with the Taro. Also rating the service a 3. We walked up to the boba counter assuming we ordered there if we just wanted drinks. We waited for a good 5 mins before I finally asked and was told we order with the hostess in the middle. Could've been nice with better directions for those who don't choose to have ramen and want to sit in for drinks. They had a kiosk but it said...

Sad to say but this place used to be a regular place for us to go but I don’t think we will be back after today. We went in and got two hot Cheeto corn dogs and I got my normal bowl of spicy miso ramen, it was my favorite but today’s bowl was SO much spicier than it normally is. I took about 4 bites before I stopped eating because my stomach started to hurt because of the spice. Mind you I have ordered this same bowl of ramen multiple times and have been able to Handel the mild spice every time. I brought it up to the waiter and he apologized and talked to the chef and the manager, chef said nothing changed and manager said that in order for me to get a refund I would need to go to the hospital so they can take it through the restaurant insurance. I asked if it could just be taken off of the bill, and they said I ate too much of it. Again I only ate about 4 bites. They said the only thing they could do is take 10% off of the ramen only. I’ve never been to a restaurant that won’t just take something off the bill that the customer isn’t satisfied with. My stomach hurts. We will not be back...