Yanagi Ramen — Restaurant in Lubbock

If there’s anything that is as filling yet light on the calorie scale as salad, it is ramen. A hearty bowl of broth, noodles, protein, and veggies leaves you feel like you ate a ton, yet in reality, it’s just the north doing all the heavy lifting.

And thanks be to the weather Gods for an overcast day—finally!—after an interminable heat wave, a bowl of piping hot ramen just sounded good. I don’t have to wait for winter to eat what amounts to an amazing bowl of soup.

A successful Google search yielded Yanagi on the far south side of Lubbock, yet another city in this region that is growing toward the prevailing wind. It’s a tastefully decorated restaurant with modern sensibilities, although the Buddha in the corner did not go unnoticed.

I opted for the Vegetable Ramen Bowl. It’s built on a base of vegetable broth, and filled with a serving of tofu (14g of protein if you are counting!), bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, edamame (more protein!), sweet corn, and spinach. The noodles (wavy or straight, your call) may push you into carb no-no land, but if you’re not counting carbs, it’s all good. Besides, you can burn them real fast with a good workout.

My bowl was just as I like it—steaming hot, enough to activate the sinuses. The spice level was on the mild side, so don’t worry about burning the roof of your mouth. It was pure taste sensation, and if proper etiquette didn’t dictate otherwise, I would have lifted my bowl to my face to finish the last few drops.

It was that good.

The Place was busy on this Friday lunch hour, and rightfully so. Service was fast for those on a time budget, but if you’re just plain starving as I was, I was thankful. Get in here. This place deserves every one of its...

We went at around 6pm for dinner, and experienced a 20 minute wait before being seated. The food came out fairly slowly, however with a full restaurant and waiting patrons, this is completely understandable and made the meal leisurely and enjoyable to not be rushed. We left with leftovers at 8pm.

The food was excellent, and was exactly what I expected at a Raman restaurant. They had a great Salmon Roll, and their build-your-own Raman made things very easy to enjoy, especially when you do not think you will enjoy their main Raman recipes. The only concern with others in my party was that things were somewhat bland - it just depends on how much flavor you want.

The service was great as well, with kind and cheerful waiters. The service was somewhat slow, but again, with a full restaurant, it was clear they were having to move around quickly to keep things going, and it is difficult to attend deeply to each table.

The atmosphere was pretty good, though it did get somewhat noisy due to the flood of patrons inside. They decorated with modern-Japanese-appearing decor, which was a nice touch, and our whole party loved the nice fountain by the front door and waiting area. They had one TV playing football preseason without volume, so it was not overly distracting, but anyone interested in watching it had the possibility.

Overall, I would without a doubt go again for a meal.

Also, to note: during our 20 minutes of waiting, we saw approximately 6 different DoorDash delivery drivers drop...

Very hospitable and excellent sushi.

Everything else though is absolutely AWFUL! (I hate giving low reviews to anyone, especially when hospitality is good, but this place deserves 0 stars!)

Went here with family for a celebration, we all ordered something different to so we could all sample everything.

West Texas Sushi roll and Deep Fried Tuna Roll: Excellent! Good size and great tasting.

Yanagi Signature Ramen: Broth was cold and flavorless and ramen was thick and fat as if it had been sitting there soaking in water all day.

Tofu Ramen (not sure the exact name): Also cold, flavorless. Definitely been sitting out at room temperature for too long before being served.

House fried Rice: Rice was sticky, fat, and gooey as if it was pulled out of a wet bag. No use of butter and lack of soy sauce, flavorless and disgusting.

Beef Udon Noodle: The beef and the vegetables were all cold to the TOUCH as if they just cooked the some noodle and pulled the toppings out of the fridge.

Hibachi steak: Rice was also gooey and gross and the steak was cold.

SUMMARY: I highly DON'T recommend this place for Japanese/Asian food outside of sushi. For what you pay for, you'd expect a good meal. Having 5 out 5 entree's for the entire group be utter trash is absolutely unacceptable, even for poorly operated fast food standards. What we received was just disrespectful. I know I'll never eat...