KYURAMEN - Bayside — Restaurant in New York

First time to be here with my family for Christmas dinner. We have ordered mostly all the variety of their foods. Rice, ramen, appetizers, drinks and desserts. My two stars here is for the foods, otherwise I will give ZERO. The foods are good since the ingredients and sauces are all pre-made as they are an international franchise restaurant. They do not have a set server for you. Whenever you need the service you have to press their service bell which is very convenient but it would be different person show up. The service is bad, but not to the worse cause at least I got one person have her smiling carried on and talked to us politely for us. All of others have no "thank you" and no smile. Keep this in mind , they were not busy at all. At least 7 of them were standing there and chitchat to each other's. Whenever I asked for service. I would have "thank you" every time I talked to them as my ending, but they wound not say thank you or you are welcome back to you. They just took your order silently and gone. The most terrible one is the last waiter who brought us our check. He has no any facial expressions nor of any word. Came with the check , took my card , handed me his iPad for tips and signature, took the iPad back then turned his back with no any voice. How amazing was that. I have my entire time thinking that if he has the speaking issue to make him uable to speak or communicate with people. They also won't take away the empty plates or bowls after we were done on our foods. We had have over 10 plate/bowls on the table and none of those servers who came over to our table would take the initiative to clean them up. I have to ask them like twice for that so we could have the space on table for our desserts. Amazing I still have given the 15% tips just because of the only waitress who served us with smile, not the 18, 20 , 22 percent they have suggested on their iPad. I really think of not tipping cause they really ruined my Christmas dinner with my family.

REPLY TO THE OWNER: Thanks for your response, I am appreciated as well. Yes , please have the retaining apply to them ASAP if you want to ensure the business. It seems like a very immature management of the restaurant to me. No one surprise and the staffs just don't care about the customers' experience. Few of those will be greatly impact by those poor quality ones. Please started it to your receptionist. She didn't make me feel welcomed at all when I told her about my reservation. No smile , no eye contact, talking like a robot. Also , A guy walked toward to me while we were waiting for the table to be sat was looking me like I am his enemy. That was the first two minutes I stepped in and I have no any communication with him at all. I was thinking if I was blocking his way although there was so much room at the reception area. After we have been sat , we pressed the service bell and guess what? That guy looked at me like a enemy shown up!! How would you looked at the customer like that when we were first time visit and didn't do any thing impolite at the moment we literally just arrived. I was very concerned if that guy would do anything to my foods and he made me so disturbing. Tall guy, speak English fluently, he was just starting his...

Rex was incredibly friendly and warm, creating a comfortable dining experience and atmosphere; he even opened my sanitizing wipe as I checked out their menu, which was very thoughtful. The restaurant is incredibly spacious and pretty, with a honeycomb seating booth interior design that's unique and picturesque! The menu is very expansive, ranging from a wide variety of ramen dishes, kamameshis, rice burgers, and a long list of appetizers and sides; I recommend coming here with multiple people so you can try as much as possible (wish I did that lol). At the time of this review, you can check-in on Yelp to get a free dessert or drink, so don't forget if it's still available! They also have a fun little passive game where if you order their ramen, there's a chance that at the bottom of bowl if it says the word "Free" you win a little prize as shown in the picture, which is fun and exciting; kinda wish they did that for the rice dishes as well haha. One issue with the service is that when it came time for the bill, the staff took forever to come and I'm unsure if it's because of the bell not working properly or that they just didn't see it.

Now onto the food:

I ordered the pork tonkatsu omurice combo with curry sauce and a Thai iced tea. The Thai ice tea is a bit sweeter than I would like, but that's just my personal taste. When the rice came, the staff was being efficient and began cutting the egg and assembling the dish before I got the chance to even record it, which was definitely a bummer since I'm sure many people who order this would like to enjoy cutting the egg and have it run down the rice rather than having others cut it for them; I'd recommend asking the diner if they would like to assemble it themselves or have the staff do it for them, that way the diner can prepare to record it or enjoy it to their preference, such as adding however much of the sauce they want instead of having it all drenched all over.

The fried rice is incredibly flavorful with a rich beef umami flavor, and the egg is perfectly runny, just like how it is in all those Japanese TikTok videos or Facebook reels! The curry has a nice mild flavor to it and the tonkatsu was perfectly battered! However, my only complaint is that the tonkatsu is a bit small, especially for the price, so perhaps a slightly bigger portion would've enhanced the dish even more! It definitely didn't look like the picture, where it appeared more plain and without the scallions; I kinda would've liked it more to look like the picture and that way we can assemble the dish ourselves. Lastly, the tonkatsu was served on top of a measly few pieces of greens, which was a bit unappetizing, so the presentation could use a little work!

Asides from the hiccups I mentioned (small tonkatsu portion, not aesthetically pleasing appearance with the greens, and not being able to cut the egg and enjoy the experience), it was definitely a positive experience and I would love the opportunity to come back to try their expansive menu selections!

Thank you for reading and...

UPDATE: It has now been 6 months since the previous 3 star review and i decided to give them another try.

I am very happy to say that this Sapporo Miso ramen is some of the best ramen I have ever tasted. The chashu wasn't dried out, the bamboo shoots were very flavorful. The BROTH was absolutely amazingly rich and super umami. I ordered it at max level spiciness and I added kimchi for even more spicy kick. The Kimchi is out of this world! It tastes homemade and so well seasoned. It just adds even more flavor to this already flavorful and rich Broth. The miso and Sapporo are very apparent in the Broth now, and you can taste the ginger as well. Not too oily and very pleasantly spicy. The noodles were pleasantly firm and everything was packaged amazingly for delivery. They did include utensils this time. This is likely going to be the only Kyuramen I go to now. The others aren't as delicious as this one, in Bayside, and this location has gotten SO MUCH BETTER. Thank you for listening to your customers and actually caring enough to read these and implement our suggestions. That's how you stay in business.

If you'r2e going to order ramen from a Kyuramen, his location in Bayside is EXPONENTIALLY BETTER than the one in flushing, Best so far considering I've been to at least 3 of these locations and hated them all. Gave it one more go at another location just to see if theres a change, but overall, their broths all taste the exact same type of bland to me, and I don't like them. I also dislike that they use the same noodles in every ramen. It makes a difference.

Spicy miso Broth wasn't very rich so I added my own oil and black garlic. It barely tasted of miso or pork honestly.The chashu here is actually much better, tender and not cold feeling like its been sitting at the bottom of a drawer for 8 months (yes you, Kyuramen Flushing, with cold dry chashu that tastes of midieval bootleather and smells like the inside of a couch).

We asked for utensils and were not provided any which sucks because eating ramen with a fork sucks. Still overpriced. My boyfriend got salmon Onigiri and still hasn't stopped complaining about how dry and flavorless they are. Overall, too expensive to be just okay, wouldn't...