kai ramen sherman oaks — Restaurant in Los Angeles

I HAVE OFFICIALLY FOUND MY FAVORITE RAMEN SHOP IN THE VALLEY!

Parking - For starters, it is located in the same plaza as some of my other favorites like Sushi Mac. The parking is free for one hour only and if it's particularly busy, like lunch or dinner rush, it may be very difficult to find a spot.

Ramen - There's a good selection of ramen to choose from and I did see tsukemen as an option, which I'll certainly have to order on my next visit! I ordered the Kai's white ramen $10.50 and my mom ordered the Tonkatsu classic for $9.00. The broth is so rich and the noodles are thick and cooked to a perfect medium. What I like about their ramen is that there are already so many toppings included, such as a soft boiled egg, dry seaweed, garlic, green onions, and bean sprouts. You can always add more if you like. One gripe I have is that the soft boiled egg isn't as runny as I certainly enjoy having it, but it was still very tasty. The chashu cuts are so thick and juicy with a perfect amount of fat to keep that flavor locked in. Everything came out in perfect portions!

Special offers - On Yelp you get 7% cash back bonus if you have a linked card. They also have a check in offer for a free side of garlic or spicy pickle jar but these are both already free toppings, so I hope they change that promo. They do, however, give you a free dessert in exchange for a review. My mom ordered the almond tofu and I got green tea ice cream. The almond tofu comes in a small ramekin and the ice cream comes in a bowl that is perfect for sharing. The tofu seems to be homemade and it is absolutely delicious! The green tea satisfies a craving, but isn't too strong in flavor.

One thing I really like is that they give you garlic cloves in a jar with a hand mincer for you to squeeze into your ramen.

Service - To be quite frank, it was alright. My server seemed to rush us very often even though she was very sweet. She was patient and a decent server so I have no complaints there.

Ambience and presentation - There's something off about this place and I blame part of it for the lighting and the organization of their store. Perhaps if they invested in dimmed lighting it would work better. I also didn't like the way the store was organized. It felt very off-putting to see a table near the back stacked with cups and pitchers and some plastic shelves on the front. Not to mention that the light up sign for their entrance only says RAMEN instead of its business name. I think presentation and ambience are vital to a restaurant, so they lose a star for this.

-- Overall, I absolutely enjoyed my visit here. The food is definitely worth coming back for and with their to-go and Grubhub options, I know that they are only a...

I've worked in kitchens more than half of my life, and in many on and around Ventura Blvd. I'm disappointed that I've never come into Kai Ramen before l, even though I live so close by. Hands down, this place crushes Tamashii, Jinya, and all the other more popular valley ramen spots.

First of all, our kitchen got hit hard by the pandemic as well, and we all know it's impossible to find decent staff right now. My friend and I drove up around 8:30 and saw they were packed with a help wanted sign in the window, and only one waitress, a busser, and two cooks. Even still we were greeted and sat immediately, and we'll taken care of the entire time. It's a small spot with about 8 tables inside, bar seating, and new patio seating. They had a ton of pick-up and third party orders but we still got our appetizers and meals within 15 minutes.

The pork buns were a perfect two person appetizer, with a huge portion of insanely tender meat, and the garlic edamame was standard, but delicious nonetheless.

We both ordered massive bowls of ramen with tons of add-ons and extras, which I still somehow managed to finish (before hobbling home with a newly pregnant belly). Usually anytime I find a new ramen joint, if they have it I go for the black ramen, or some other heavily pork based broth. With the extra bok choy, scallions, black garlic, and double noodles, it easily could have been 2-3 meals. The food isn't cheap, but it's honestly underpriced for how solid the quality is. The broth was insanely flavorful without being too thick or fatty. All the proteins for both of our meals were generous portions and ridiculously tender.

Honestly I'm writing the review because I feel so much for kitchens like this that are understaffed, overworked, and still pushing out such high quality food and keeping their cool. It's not easy to work in the restaurant industry even in the best of times, so much love and thanks to the kitchen and waitstaff of Kai Ramen. The terrifying Los Angeles heat keeps me away from soup a lot of the time, but I'll probably swing by every...

Does nobody in Sherman Oaks know what good ramen is? I came here with high expectations because of the high reviews, but every ramen dish we ordered was extremely disappointing.

Another review had said the tsukemen was similar to Tsujita on Sawtelle, but it was a far cry! No bamboo shoots, the soup was too sweet, the meat was tough,and the noodles were not cooked properly. Unfortunately that was still the best ramen item we ordered out of 3.

The volcano ramen came in second place but was barely edible. They ran out of the usual chicken it comes with, so we subbed the sesame chicken as our waiter recommended. Bad idea! The sesame chicken was so hard there were many pieces we had to throw out. The soup was again too sweet, and the other flavor was just tasteless spicy.

The last ramen we ordered was the dry ramen, which is supposed to taste like mazemen. But when they say dry ramen, I guess they mean the noodles and everything are really DRY. And the flavors were terrible. It was basically inedible and none of us really touched it. We hate wasting food so we ended up taking it home with the leftover soup from the volcano ramen and tsukemen, and it's at least edible the second day.

The only things that were decent were the appetizers and the service, which is why I'm giving 2 stars. The shishito peppers were the best thing we ordered, and the takoyaki was not bad either. A bit pricey at $7 for 4 pieces of takoyaki though.

All in all, I'll never come back here even if I'm craving ramen. It's worth the drive down to Sawtelle on the westside for...