Ramen Sho — Restaurant in Meridian

My husband and I tried this place for the first time on Friday night. The shocking discrepancy between all of the reviews had us in tears laughing so hard on the way there, so we really had no idea what to expect. But we had never tried real Ramen before and were committed to at least giving it a try.

So first of all, the location is weird. It's hard to tell if it is still in the process of taking over the location of a different Japanese restaurant, or if it is just sharing space with it? The decor of the area that appeared to be designated to Ramen Sho seemed to be perhaps loosely based on Urban Japanese culture? There is a giant almost mural of an anime style character on the outer wall. We were seated immediately in the outdoor area which is on the landing near the escalators that lead to several other restaurants. There seemed to be kind of a weird smell there, almost like the smell of an aquarium? I couldn't quite put my finger on it but the smell bothered me the whole time we were sitting there.

Our waitress was young, very sweet and welcoming. She answered our questions warmly and thoroughly. My husband ordered the Tonkatsu ramen soup, I chose the Miso and we shared an order of Gyoza and Tako Yaki. Our soups arrived very quickly, to our surprise, and as previous reviewers have said, the temperature of the soup was only warm but not hot. Perhaps the temperature of the cold toppings cools it down? The broths were both rich and luscious. I couldn't decide which I liked best! My husband felt the flavor and spiciness was lacking in his broth, but I loved both. As I mentioned, neither of have ever tried real Ramen before, but neither of us were extremely gung-ho about the texture and flavor of the noodles. The toppings were ok, though the sprouts were not crisp. I personally couldn't handle the texture of the pork belly--soft, pale and fatty-- which came with both of our soups, but my husband ate both of them and said they were delicious. I noticed from scrolling through other customer's pictures that the toppings of the soups are not consistent. Some get corn on their soups? We didn't get corn but we got a sort of red-colored grated ginger on ours.

The Gyoza were epic!! Absolutely delicious. I wanted more! Next we tried the Tako Yaki. I was eager and bit into one and burned my mouth!! I watched another customer do the same thing! It was a bit odd to have this difference in temperature between each menu item. I found that I couldn't handle the texture of these either. The outside is crispy and thin while the entire middle is creamy like mashed potatoes with the chewy piece of octopus in the very middle. I think maybe if they were smaller, I would find them a little more palatable. But I admit, I am no connoisseur of Japanese food.

Our waitress brought us the bill before we were finished eating, which is unfortunately one of my pet peeves, especially when the place is not extremely busy. We hadn't decided yet if we were going to have dessert, and ended up deciding to which made us feel awkward because she had already brought the bill. Meanwhile my glass was drained halfway through the meal, despite making eye contact with her with my glass held up, after which she took the water pitcher and went to water the plants!!! I drained my husband's glass, and no one offered to refill it either. She refilled glasses of water at the table directly beside us, too, which was also odd.

We ordered Mochi for dessert, which was also a first for us. We hesitated in choosing between green tea and mango flavor and our waitress offered us one of each which we gladly accepted. We were surprised when she came out with two plates of two of each, which she apologized for and said she would just charge us for one. We were already very full at this point so we're bummed that we wouldn't be able to finish all of them before they melted. I personally loved the mango mochi!!

It was definitely a mixed experience. I am excited that Boise now has a ramen restaurant, and I hope that they continue to improve their service and...

Just to preface: I've eaten a lot of ramen. I've been to a number of ramen shops across the country and made my own at home. I love my ramen but don't consider myself a snob. It needn't be fancy, just quality.

Ramen sho could be good but needs some improvement. Looking at the few pictures others have posted, I suspect my wife and I may gave been shorted as they may have been running low on food (we showed up around 6 pm and they ran out about an hour later). The first thing I noticed is they don't have shichimi togarashi, a spice mix, which is odd as it's a ramen shop staple. That's like ramen 101, folks. We checked out the menu but about half of it was taped over, presumably due to them being out. I'm accustomed to being able to choose my own ramen adventure, selecting a broth base with noodles and then add-ons, but there was no such option. Part of the fun for me is customizing my ramen (corn, pork, seaweed, naruto, even butter!) so that was a bummer. I ordered tonkotsu ramen, my wife miso.

Both came with one razor thin slice of pork, half of a soft-boiled egg, and various condiments (corn, mushroom slices, seaweed, ginger, et cetera). Both bowls were seriously lacking in broth which is majorly disappointing as ramen is very broth-centric, not to mention our egg halves were cold. There wasn't enough broth to submerge the egg halves so cold they remained. It was basically a pile of noodles with some broth around the bottom. The noodles were mediocre, I'm sure they weren't fresh, probably dried but maybe fried. Given that you can purchase frozen fresh noodles locally, this was a letdown. My tonkotsu broth was good but I found my wife's miso broth to be too heavy on the miso, making it a bit too salty and flavor too strong.

Service was what I've grown to expect from Shige: ranging between mediocre to bad. We worked with three different individuals: one woman who seated us, another who was our waitress, and a third who took our payment. We were seated quickly if impersonally. Our waitress was friendly but inattentive, not checking on us once and only returning very early in the meal to drop off the bill. The woman who eventually took our payment did so without responding to us and avoided eye contact. We watched my debit card being passed from person to person, disappearing for awhile, then presumably being run, then being carried around by one waitress with the signing slips for awhile until it was passed to the woman who took it who just as quietly dropped it off with us. We thanked and wished her a good evening, and she just walked away. My card was on its adventure for about fifteen minutes and while nothing bad happened, it was odd and unprofessional.

Bear in mind this was the first day so I expect (hope) they will get better; as it stands, though, the experience was disappointing. I hope the food will improve but am not holding my breath for the service; Shige's service has been consistently spotty as long as I've gone there. I'll give them another try in a couple of weeks and update my review...

In short, I hope you like Sriracha because that's the only thing that had flavor here.

Here is my full review in case you want a longer read:

First of all, they don't have any vegetarian ramen options. I was told that in order to make a vegetarian broth, it would take up the whole kitchen and there would be no room to fulfill other orders.

That may not be important to you if you're not a vegetarian, but my boyfriend had the ramen and had to add soy sauce, which he said didn't help, but thankfully there was Sriracha on the table which he said helped. Otherwise, he described the flavor as not much different than what you could make from a packet at home.

Since I couldn't eat the ramen, the gal there (who was very friendly and the only reason this review does not have one star) sold me on the avocado fries and fried rice with plum sauce. The avocado fries had decent texture and a lovely dipping sauce, but I had to resort to the Sriracha because the avocado fries themselves had literally no flavor. There was no seasoning or anything. I could barely even taste a hint of avocado. As for the fried rice with plum sauce...it wasn't until I had already ordered the rice and they had started on it in the kitchen that I was notified that they were out of plum sauce, which was the only reason the rice sounded good. I got a pile of bland fried rice with pieces of burned egg, so Sriracha came to my rescue once more. Luckily I at least got a discount on that one.

To top the whole experience off, it was pretty disorganized. The table of people behind us got there before us. They had beverages, but no one ever got their actual dinner order. We had already ordered and gotten our food, and they had to wave someone over to let them know that no one ever took their order.

Despite promises of future menu items, I will not be returning. I can't imagine the new items having much flavor. It was too disappointing to spend my money there once; I don't think I can bring myself to...