Ramen Bones — Restaurant in Maui

Maui's newest and sadly only second ramen shop opened on 5.31.23 in Puunene SC. The company is now officially a chain with this second location (other is on Oahu).

ATMOSPHERE: Quarters are tight so you shouldn't try to bring in a party larger than 4 and leave your strollers in the car. No counter seating, only low tops. A semi-loud overhead radio station in turn made patrons speak even louder.

RESERVATIONS: None taken.

PARKING: Plenty of free parking.

MENU: Combo sets, seafood & poultry dishes, noodles, ramen & udon, kid's menu.

FOOD: Mini Pork Fried Rice - $10.50 One of the hallmarks of ramen shops is their fried rice. They usually have a distinctive yet subtle "grill-flavor" which I attribute to a well-seasoned pan. I did get a little of that here, so I'm positive as time goes on it'll get better. Peas, green onion & kamaboko also reside within.

Karaage Chicken - $8.45 (5 pcs.) Light and airy batter, crispy and perfectly cooked, this was extremely good. A katsu sauce heavy on ketchup flavor accompanied, but I prefer mine drizzled with shoyu.

Shrimp Tempura - $8.75 (4 pcs.) Whomever the cook is, props to them as this was another deep-fried winner. I'm pretty sure they were of the frozen variety but sure didn't taste like it.

Gyoza - $6.95 (5 pcs.) Sadly these were out, whop wah wahhh... (sad sound effects)

*Yay, they were available on our second visit. The wrappers were thinner than the norm (a plus in my book), averagely-stuffed with pork and had a nice char to the bottoms.

Charsiu Shoyu Ramen - $15.95 Shoyu broth is my favorite. The posted pics didn't wow me, but I still had to try it first. It had an odd flavor & color; savory, a bit creamy but flat overall. The non-eggy, al dente noodles were of the thin, yellow variety like they use in chow mein or crispy noodle dishes and killed it for me. I'd prefer bean sprouts over the included bok choy, though the charsiu slices were really good; soft, a bit fatty and moist.

Black Garlic Udon - $15.95 I had a sip of my spouse's bowl and damn, it was good! Bold flavors of savory & creamy. Definitely getting this next time. He did mention the egg was hard boiled vs. medium gooey.

*Fast forward a few days and we were back. I ordered this exact same dish. Hmm, the broth was a lot weaker than my spouse's, a sign of inconsistency. While I'm not a fan of udon noodles in general, they simply did not marry well to the broth. Pass.

SERVICE: We walked in at 1pm on a Monday to a packed house but got seated immediately.

Water was dropped off soon after with the server a few ticks later.

The food came out lightning quick but most importantly everything was hot and fresh.

There was no follow up but it wouldn't be hard to flag down a worker as they're constantly buzzing by.

TIP: Some reviewers mentioned an automatic 15% service charge but we weren't charged that. Perhaps they had a large party?

OVERALL: Less than stellar ramen but favorable everything else. Welcome to Maui, you're going to stay...

Horrible experience here! This was our first, and likely last time ordering from this restaurant. On new year’s day it’s considered good luck to eat noodles. We decided to splurge on the oxtail soup with udon with a side of beef curry and rice. My daughter placed our order asking to place the rice and udon on the side so that they would not get soggy and absorb all the liquids because we live far away. We were looking forward to our new years noodles. We left the parking lot and fortunately noticed was the soup was leaking all over the inside of the plastic bag and spilled out a lot of it, despite the lid being on. That’s when I took out the soup container and small box, assuming that was the udon. Next I noticed there was only a third box instead of four, which we requested the proteins and starches separated as I mentioned above. They did not separate the rice and curry. We went back to get it fixed. As we drove away we noticed there were also no utensils. After driving another 25 minutes to our home, excited to eat our noodle dinner despite the two mistakes already, I saw the other small box was RICE NOT UDON. Wow. Three huge screw ups in our order. I called to let the restaurant know they botched our order and didn’t give us noodles. Instead of apologizing the lady working the night shift rudely stated we ordered rice, when she asked for “udon”. Yeah right! The options are ramen, udon, or rice, yet she “visibly remembers” offering her specifically udon or rice? More like she heard the request “separate the Rigel but didn’t bother to pay attention that that was supposed to the curry and rice separated AND udon also separated.

What a HORRIBLE experience! As a Maui native I recommended don’t bother with these people who don’t pay attention to you, make multiple mistakes in your order (including having the bag filled with soup puddles losing out on the most expensive ramen on the menu), soaking up the paper container with rice and curry with the soup on top, crushing the curry and rice (which again we asked for separated), getting curry all smashed into the lid too), and are rude and unapologetic. Their innattention to detail is also obvious if you look at all the typos in their menu (some words spelled correctly and other times the same words not, so don’t blame it on English being a second or minority language). Stick with ramen ya who automatically know to place starches on the side when ordering to go!

And if anyone wondered, oxtail soup was only about 70% or less filled with broth and only two small pieces of the oxtail...

June 2023 Cool atmosphere, about a 30 minute wait (5pm). Kinda busy so staff wasnt too talkative. Only stopped at our table to take our order, drop off food and fill our waters. There were 5 of us, the food was good but came at different times, gyoza was a little meh but they have fried garlic, chili oil and other Sauces so you can add to your food to flavor it a bit more. For 5 people it cost $110.92 + tip. Went home after paying & tipping, but when i was checking the receipt, i didn't realize they had added a 15% service charge. So on top of the tip they also got an additional $14. My fault for bot checking before I left but I with they had mentioned something when i put our names down or when they brought the bill. Cool new place to try out but I think I prefer Ramen Ya.

Update: 12/2023 Figured I would give them a 2nd try, maybe they were just having an off day when i came. For 2 people at 8pm we were sat instantly. Came out to about $30 +tip. We both got the combo with gyoza. The food came out in under 5 minutes. The gyoza was cold and mushy. Like the just pre Cooked a bunch and let it sit out. When we got our spicy ramen it was warm but the flavor was bland, no spice, and even after adding vinegar, garlic, spicy oil, and shoyu it was okay at best. I felt full at the end of the meal but just wish the food was better. I stand by my original statement that ramen ya is better. For the same price tou get...