Ramen Ichiraku & Sushi — Restaurant in Montclair

Alright lets talk about this hole in the wall Ramen Spot. So, the fam and I walk through the Mont Clair Plaza. Afterwards, we are craving soup before headed home. The original idea was either Pho or Ramen.

As we take Central Northbound driving slowly peering at the shops and restaurants in and near the east plaza from the Target, we notice a Grand Opening sign for a Ramen spot. The door wide open but no customer or guest inside.

I hop out of the car and ask if they are still open. The two Chefs at the front along with Waitress both look over and say yes we are open til 930p. I invite the family to come down. We had the whole place to ourselves! The ambiance is very unique with several anime crossovers as their main background. I'm a big fan of Anime especially Naruto and Dragon Ball which happen to be their main background design.

There are several tables and the place looks like it can hold 35-60 folks. The place was very clean. You can tell they've barely been open for several months. I asked the waitress how long exactly and she stated theychave been operating for two months. The service is very friendly. They definitely care about their customer. They asked if we would want to eat in or take our food togo. My wife and I wanted to be considerate knowing it was already passed 9p so we decided to take our order out!

The test was going to be how good their food was and how good is it togo? We take it home everything was wrapped very well and prepared very well. We chose 3 ramen soups: Seafood, Naruto Chashew, and Beef Ramen. We also tried some sides with the Calamari and the Tempura Roll.

The broth of the ramen was very good. Deliciously made and very authentic. All three bowls were flavorful and great tasting! The Calamari was also delicious. Lightly fried with delicious crunch to every bite. It was not gamey at all and it was a great pairing to the Ramen. The Tempura Roll was decent. No complaints regarding the taste or qulaity of food wise. This is a very decent place to have a wonderful...

Well, this is upland so I didn't have hi hopes.. sadly I was correct. This place did juat about everything wrong. The ramen had very little flavor... seems like they're diluting it to save costs. They did give 4 thick pcs a pork but completely intrimmed. I can definitely eat it that way but for most this will be a turn off. The pork was good, not great but not bad either. The ramen just over all was bad. Im curious where they get their noodles because they were very generic and not fresh.

The salmon sushi tasted old and tasted a lot like grocery store sushi (yes I've had grocery store sushi before and no im not proud of it but its true), the rice had a funny taste too (not not rice vinegar).. that's enough about the sushi.. it was bad, do not order sushi from here.

The spring rolls im also curious where they come from. They are not made in house for sure.. they are previously frozen and the sauce is also generic and high in sugar tatse. Avoid.

Lastly the chicken fried rice. So this is the first time I've ever had FRIED chicken in fried rice... its not a thing because its gross. What a disappointment . The fried rice was extremely greasy and oily, and I agree fried rice typically is but this was extreme. It also had corn in it. Which added to the distaste. Im sure there are places that put corn in their fried rice but id imagine it would be disclosed .. the menu doesn't say anything about corn being in it and it really didn't taste good.

I would absolutely avoid this place. Many times I find one reason to go to a place and will make that statement vht this places literally offers nothing but a generic cartoon and childlike atmosphere (which can be fun) with all bad food. Nothing was good. If the owner is intentionally serving bad good just to make a profit then okay by all means, people will pay it if you trigger their emotions with pictures of anime. But if they genuinly think they're serving good food then I feel bad.

Again, AVOID...

I do not get the hype of this place. Located in a quiet corner of a dated strip mall is this disappointing restaurant. As soon as you enter, the first thing you notice is that the front door is spring loaded open, causing the staff to follow you and close the door. Ambiance was nothing to write home about, nothing really notable about the interior.

The menu is perplexing, especially the ramen. I just wanted a good bowl of ramen, but I didn't order it because the selection was odd. Popcorn chicken ramen? It just didn't appeal to me.

I instead ordered a chicken curry rice and a scallop roll. The curry was supposed to come with a miso soup, but it never came. The scallop roll was not good, lots of rice, maybe 6 baby scallops and a sorry spicy sauce. The scallops tasted off, so I didn't finish it.

The curry rice was also disappointing. The chicken also tasted off, I didn't eat much of it. I was then hoping to just eat the curry sauce and rice, but that too was terrible. The curry didn't have much veggies or taste. What was worse was it had such a grainy texture, I was sure they just microwaved it. Price wise, it was quite expensive.

The one positive was the waitress was super nice and attentive. What wasn't good was the younger larger guy that was there that always had a sour look on his face and always seemed like he was yelling, especially to the nice waitress. To top it all off, there was a chef who was there that ate lunch with his gloves on, proceeded to wash his bowl in the handwashing sink with his gloves, then started to touch food with the same gloves.

So on top of bad food, also bad hygiene. Hoping I do not get food poisoning....