It was a cold and rainy March night. In the midst of the dreary evening, I had decided it would finally be time to try the campus famous Japanese food restaurant known as Maki Yaki. I was excited to taste their cuisine, since everybody at Marquette University seemed to sing their praises. Also, I am Vietnamese, and trying other asian culture's dishes has always been somewhat of a pastime of mine.

When I looked online, I was impressed by the fairly high reviews; however, my friend left me with an ominous warning: "I really didn't like it, dude." My friend, who is Korean and also frequents asians restaurants with me, tried to explain what would await me. In my naivety, I ignored him.

I went with a group of friends. The line was long, a good sign, and we had to wait outside until we could fit through the door. Service was fast, so we did not wait too long in the rain. The man taking our order was pleasant, and we seated ourselves in the back. In total we ordered: 2 bentos, 3 spicy pork ramens, 1 spicy chicken ramen, and 1 chicken breast salad. Again, the service was fast and our food arrived quite reasonably. So far, it was a pleasant, if a tad expensive, experience; however, this changed once I observed my ramen dish.

First, the ramen. If you have had authentic ramen, you may want to stop reading, for the following may disturb you. Our ramen featured sliced broccoli, carrots, onions, and green peppers - more akin to stir fry than ramen vegetables. The pork was stir fried, I suspect, as it was tough and chewy; resembling the pork received at an inexpensive chinese restaurant. This was nothing like the soft pork typically included in ramen dishes. The broth lacked the richness and aromatics of usual ramen. Most horrifically of all, the egg was served hard-boiled. You read that correctly: the soft-boiled egg, which is a staple in ramen dishes, was hard-boiled. In fact, it was a tad green around the edges, indicating the extremely harsh degree of hard-boiling the poor egg had experienced.

It seemed that this ramen was little more than a Chinese dish dressed up as Japanese. However, as Chinese food, it was of poor quality as well. As I mentioned before, the pork was tough and chewy. As well, the vegetables tasted as if they were from the frozen food aisle at the neighborhood Sendiks.

I cannot attest to the quality of the other dishes; however, I did notice that the bento was served with Jasmine rice - not short grain rice. As a young Vietnamese man, I love jasmine rice, but it has no place in the Japanese palate.

As we finished our meals and enjoyed each other’s company, the staff politely informed us that it was closing time. We left, with subpar but warm food in our bellies. My korean friend lightly chided me after I informed him of my experience, and I promised to heed his food advice in the future. All in all, Maki Yaki provided good service and poor food. Score: 2 / 5 stars.