IPPUDO NY — Restaurant in New York

My husband and I loved coming here when I was in college about 2-3 years ago and the food and service was OUTSTANDING. I really don’t know how something so good could go so bad. The food is decent, standard ramen but the sides are served COLD. They could be warmed just a little but no it’s served very cold like it was just pulled from the fridge. We did go during lunch period so they had the lunch menu only. The noodles were not as soft and chewy like before, it was more stale? Like as if the noodles were not FULLY cooked all the way yet.

THE MUSIC IS NOT GOOD. I liked the authentic feel Ippudo once had and the music was calmer, softer, and traditional. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy the pop music they were playing but I felt like it wasn’t the time or the place for that type of music especially since it wasn’t traditional. And it was EXTREMELY loud. Very hard to hear the person you came to eat with.

Lastly, the service… I thought my servers were great in the aspect of taking food orders, and engaging with us. However, in Asian restaurants, it is customary to serve either hot tea or water complimentary with your food or while you’re browsing the menu… the server asked what I would prefer and I said hot tea as it was cold outside in NYC. He brings back a tea pot and two cups for us to enjoy. We really enjoyed the tea, and we didn’t think twice about it. We asked for the check and saw we were charged $8 for the hot tea. Now, I am NOT saying this was bad pricing for good tea, but I think it’s surprising to charge us for the tea when it was never specified to us it would be an additional cost. I probably would still have gotten the tea but I would like to know if it was going costs something before ordering it. The server asked us like as if it was complimentary. He asked “Can I start you guys off with some water or tea?” And we said tea. To see the charge was surprising, and we told another server right away. They didn’t apologize but said “Oh, that’s weird, the server should have told you guys it’s a $8 charge. We can take it out of your check if you want.” We appreciated the offer but still paid the $8 tea because since we drank it, it felt right but I feel like a “sorry” could have made the situation better.

I’d like to end this on a bittersweet note by saying that again, this place used to be amazing. Really truly was one of the BEST ramen spots in NYC, and it’s a shame that post COVID and everything else wrong with the world might have affected this place. Now that is NOT to say that they can never be amazing again! I HOPE the staff at Ippudo sees this and I can only hope that instead of seeing this review as a complaint, they see it as a critique and advice to help them better their reputation and hopefully become better, better than they ever were. 2024 is all about growth and prosperity and I hope they can find it in themselves to start changing stuff around so we can go back to enjoying it and loving it. Thanks for taking the time out to...

The reason why I only gave 2 stars because my friend and I got terrible service from our server. I add 1 star for another servers that helping, being nice and professional. We were on our lunch break and want to eat at the place near by our work. We saw this place has tons of reviews and mostly good so we didn’t expect very rude service form here. Our server is a Spanish guy, wearing glasses, curry dark hair. He seems nice at the beginning asking us what we want to eat but when he takes our order he is very unprofessional. We did scanned the barcode menu and looked at it but we still didn’t have an idea what the food looked like so we went on website to see some food picture that another customer reviews. When we pointed out the pictures on the website and he made his face unhappy then said the restaurant doesn’t have that menu anymore and slammed the barcode banner on our table! We were shock of that behavior. Then he said he has to close the lunch by 4PM then walk to take care another table and didn’t come back to us again close to 4PM. We ordered ramen, steak, ribs and lots of appetizers but he still asked this was all we wanted to order. I said yes, we shared the food. My friend asked for extra chili, our server forgot then we had to ask another server and they served us good. Then steak and ribs came he didn’t give us fork or knife. Who will you cut big piece of ribs with chopsticks? didn’t make sense at all. Then my friend want more chili and asked him, he went to the kitchen and came back with big bowl of chili and slammed the bowl on the table then said this should be enough right? We could tell from his tone of voice he was being sarcastic and this was it. We are done with rude and unacceptable behavior of this guy. We don’t know how many customer get bad service from him but maybe they didn’t say anything but this will effect to the restaurant reputation in the future....

After finishing my meal, I gave my card to the staff for payment and requested a paper bag while leaving the remaining food in a take-out box on the table. I went to the restroom, and when I returned, my seat had already been cleared, my remaining food was thrown away, and my card was missing.

The manager, who seemed to be in charge, told me to wait while they looked for my card. I agreed to wait, and the manager then said, 'We thought you had left already.' That was totally fine for me. Later, an employee who appeared to be of Indian descent came up to me and started questioning why I acted like I had already left. I explained, 'I haven’t received my card back yet, and I haven’t signed the receipt or completed the payment. How could I have left? I just went to the restroom with my food still on the table.' But this employee responded with, 'Some people forget their card or food and leave.' I was absolutely baffled by this comment. Why was this being said to me? This doesn’t apply to me, so why was I being blamed?

Moreover, the take-out food I requested eventually showed up after some time, and it seemed like it had been thrown in the trash and retrieved from there. This was completely ridiculous and extremely frustrating. The comment 'Some people forget' had absolutely nothing to do with me, and I couldn’t understand why I was being blamed and spoken to in such a dismissive manner.

Although the staff apologized, it felt insincere as they continued to blame me by saying, 'You acted as if you had already left, and that’s why this happened.' The apology was just a way to avoid taking responsibility. There was no real acknowledgment of their mistakes, and I felt unfairly blamed for something that wasn’t my fault.

The lack of respect for the customer and the attempt to deflect blame was completely unacceptable. I will never return to this...