KEN CHAN RAMEN — Restaurant in Lubbock

I ordered the #1 ramen. Here's where it fell short for me. The broth was bland and salty. It didn't have a deep umami flavor for a rich broth. It seems really light colored compared to other ramen locations that I've been to. The broth is definitely thick but it seems like it was thickened with flour or a powder. It doesn't have the signature grease and fat bubbles from a pork broth stewing for a long time. I can taste the bland salt flavor from a thickener instead of a deep pork flavor that brings out the umami. Flavor doesn't take my taste buds for a ride anywhere like a super good ramen flavor.

The char sui is dry. Maybe it seems pre-cooked then reheated too quickly. I chew it and it's chalky instead of falling apart like a slow roasted char sui. It doesn't have the signature burn marks either which is a bit disappointing.

I like the noodles. It's a firm texture. Not as yellow as I'm used to either.

The ramen bowl came out super fast which was surprising to me as I'm used to a little wait.

The gyoza is also a bit bland.

I'm going to have to take this ramen home and eat it for later. I had high hopes for a spot near my hotel but I'll try this place again next time. It could just be me.

However, the service, environment, music, loved it all. The decor is awesome. Very well done and very natural and wood rustic Japanese style so it's very lively!

Update: Thank you for taking the time for the detailed response! I had worked late and just missed the operating hours. I hope to take you up on discussing how ramen is made. I'm passionate for it and would love to try...

Edit* we have gone back twice since this original review two almost three weeks ago. The food was wonderful and the flavor lived up to expectations. However, we had friends we finally convinced to try Ken Chan and they said they would not be back because of the same server problem we had. John is quite literally going to run away customers. His jokes when he gets your food wrong are not funny and maybe he shouldn’t try to memorize your order and should write it down if he can’t get it right. He’s been the problem 4/5 times. My friend is 9mo pregnant and couldn’t even get a refill of water from him and when she asked another server he gave her a dirty look. Unacceptable. The girl we had was wonderful and checked up on us and made sure we had everything we needed! I didn’t catch her name but she was newer and very nice. It’s like it goes 2 steps forward and 3 steps back with this place. We just order our food to go and no longer get appetizers or drinks or anything. I added pictures of when we last went with the girl server before we switched to just carry out now. Food is great again but John’s gotta go. *

The servers are not very attentive and lately have gotten my order wrong the last 2x I’ve gone. The broth seems inconsistent and is really good some days and okay on others. My husband loves this place but to regularly go at least once a week and experience this multiple times is bad. We are going to try other ramen...

Amazing ramen and pork bone broth! We visited with a Japanese student and we all thoroughly enjoyed the food. The ramen was similar to what we had during our trip to Japan.

Prices and portions are very reasonable, our entire group of nine ate for around $130, which included appetizers. We had a mix of dishes, all of which were great: a vegetable and a curry ramen; chicken, beef, and pork tonkotsu; chicken and beef fried rice, and a ribeye bowl. I don't know if they would let me order just a straight bowl of hot broth but next time I go, I'll ask because the broth was that good!

I'm surprised to see other reviews about poor service because our interactions with the owner/manager was the highlight of our visit. I couldn't even count how many times he came by our table, made sure we had anything we could think of, and ensured our custom order requests came out exactly how we wanted.

As if that weren't enough already, he told us about the alcohol collection they have and the unique history of the distillers. He took the time to tell us about his trip how he pulled everything together for the store.

The only negative I can think of is that it did take a while for some of the food to come but I think it was a reasonable wait for lunch hour. Also considering the quality of what we got, I won't complain a bit. We couldn't have been happier with the place and really enjoyed the food, the people, and...