Kyuramen - Chinatown — Restaurant in New York

The honeycomb seating and cute decor is blinding you all from the true atrocity that is, the FOOD!

Yeah, yeah the honeycomb sitting, good deals, but what is a good deal when the food you're eating is nothing amazing, let alone memorable.

I ordered the thai tea, pork bao, dumplings, and curry ramen with my partner.

The thai tea was nothing spectacular. A bit overly sweet and the flavor slightly artificial, but not horrible. Solid 3 out of 5.

The pork bao was very subpar. I was expecting the pork to be crispy, but it came soft and was not cleaned properly. It was difficult to enjoy the bao when there was no variation in texture besides the pig hairs that were failed to be removed prior to cooking. The flavor was, once again, mediocre. Even the sauce between the buns could not save this disappointment of a dish. 1 out of 5 stars.

The dumplings were the worst part, and mind you, dumplings are a simple dish. Yet, like the patrons, I feel the honeycomb seating distracted the chefs from executing this dish with the necessary skill. The dumplings came overdone, falling apart underneath an attempted crispy dumpling skirt. Emphasis on attempted, because the dumplings were oversteamed. That made them too soggy, causing the excess moisture to drip down to the "crispy" dumpling skirt, and turn into a damp mess. And to further add insult to injury, there was no flavor. Like, AT ALL. The side sauces and condiments I put on top made me feel like I was eating spicy wet napkins, instead of just bland wet napkins. 0 out of 5 stars.

And lastly, we get to the "star" of the show. Stars usually have 5 points that hit, to create emphasis and attention. But this curry ramen had no points to make. Nothing hit.

The noodles were NOT hand-pulled, and disappointing for a restaurant specializing in ramen. They felt like they were pre-packaged instant noodles, that were opened up, over-boiled, and tossed into the ramen curry soup base. And I could not tell you what was worse, the soup base or the noodles. The curry soup base tasted like a packaged curry cube that you toss into your pot after you decide it's Japanese curry night. No extra spice, no extra sparkle, nothing to make this curry ramen a star. I had to add my own seasoning (Adobo that I bring on a keychain) to make the curry ramen manageable and mildly enjoyable to eat. The crispy pork on top was not crispy! This place must have an aversion to making food crispy because the pork came soggy. The breading was falling apart as it was sitting on top of the curry soup base. I would have loved to get any sort of crunch from the pork, but like the bao: soft, sad, and sloppy. I could not finish the broth, nor the sad and sloppy noodles. 2 out of 5 stars.

Overall, the food was "meh". Nothing worth noting, or even remembering of fondly. The matcha place next door was my favorite food experience of the night.

The service is friendly and quick, my waiter ordered our food in a way to save us a couple of dollars. But I would have rather saved my appetite and money for another ramen place.

This place is cute, and that's all. If you want fantastic food, get out of here, the honeycomb seating can only take this...

I work next to the bayside location of this place and never got the service that I did in Chinatown. I had to give a two star because although the food was good and the service was okay, I had a bad experience when that check came. I’m not sure what the name of the person who served me was but she was a young women about 20-30 years old. Anyways, my family came to New York to visit me and I showed them around Chinatown, I told them that this place has one of the best ramens so we went. Everything was good and they liked the food but once the check came, the experience was different. I paid in cash, the total amount was about $60 and I left $6 tip or so. As we are getting ready to leave the women comes to my table and ask if the service was good, I said yeah everything was good, thank you and then she said then why did you give $6 tip. I was shocked because I never had someone ask me why I tipped them the way I did. I told her because I chose to tip her that. I asked her why are you asking me. She said the manager wants to know so I said can I speak with the manager and she said he wasn’t there. I said well I would like to talk to him because now I am having a bad experience in this place, getting asked about the tip. She said they don’t get paid much and the tip helps with their salary so I told her if that’s the case then they should have the tip included like most places. I’m aware that tips are optional not obligated unless they are included. I told her so does that mean that I am paying for her salary if that’s the case then she should find a better job that pays better and doesn’t depend on tips. I told her if it’s up to me I would go pick up my food in the kitchen but restaurants won’t allow that since they have a server or a waiter position to get the food for customers. In order to fix what she said, she said we just ask the customers who tip low why they tipped like that to see if our service or the food was bad. I said if the service or food was bad, I wouldn’t be here and since in here they care about client experience and I am having a bad one, can I get the mangers information so I can ask him why the servers are asking clients for more tips, it’s extremely disrespectful and leaves clients not wanting to come back again. She refused to give any information on the manager saying she doesn’t want to escalate it. I left, never coming back to this location which is money hungry. The reason I came here is because I am familiar with the restaurant and we were in Chinatown. If I had to suggest a better place for ramen it would be Ichiran, they are no tipping restaurant because they want the food and service to do the talking and customers can just enjoy the food and appreciate the service instead of thinking of a tip as it should be. As a TIP to Chinatown kyuramen location, pay your employees better wages so they don’t go around asking their customers for more tip so that way your customers have a better experience and want to come back instead of avoiding this place...

Came here 01/21/23 ~4PM

I really hate to give this place two stars because the food was amazing and the interior design splendid, but the vibe was pretty aggressive from the waitresses.

To start, the server I had was cool, homie had great customer service skills and recommended me the diced chashu when I was going to get tonkatsu which I usually get for my curry ramen. 10/10. Even made it a full meal and got the pork bao and thai ice tea. Definitely one of my better-tasting lunches. He was so accommodating and even let me hold on to the dessert menu if I wanted something else later, dope!!

As I'm eating, one of the waitresses sits a woman diagonally from me. I look for a second to acknowledge (without saying a word) and I get this aggressive tone (from the waitress) as if it was wrong for me to even look her way.

"DO YOU NEED ANYTHING ELSE SIR?" Now I know on text this doesn't sound like much and I wish I could say it wasn't, but she seemed angry that I was eating here. I brushed it off and continued eating.

As I finished up all the food and stack the plates for the server to take, I look at the dessert menu. Before I get a chance to order a check is bought in front of me, almost forcefully, to try and get rid of me. Being unsure about wanting anything else, I happily obliged to pay, and almost too conveniently I'm watched as I take out my wallet to have my card tap almost immediately. I remember homeboy and gave him 18% tip, but could NOT shake the feeling I was not wanted there by the waitresses.

Now I eat at many Asian restaurants and had hung out with a majority of Asians since high school (I am black/latino), so I rarely feel uncomfortable even eating dimsum in the middle of huge a Asian crowd. So for me (who reviews a lot of Asian restaurants passionately) to say that I felt some racism vibes, says a lot.

I found myself looking around to see how diverse the restaurant was (which I don't usually care for) because I felt very uncomfortable with the energy the waitresses gave me.

I even found myself upset, trying to figure out what possibly went wrong as this negative energy had followed me back to my workplace just enough for others to notice embarrassingly.

I'm just gonna mark this as a misunderstanding and assume something traumatic has happened to these waitresses based on the politics that have been going on lately.

When I even said bye the waitress jumped as if I was dangerous and I almost laughed cause I just assumed some wild stuff she could have been thinking.

Maybe cause I started hitting the gym and seem intimidating? Maybe it was my Freddy Kruger ugly sweater that reminded her of elm street?? lol (It's a very warm sweater!)

I don't even know but I think funny like that as I try to make the situation optimistic in my mind because I don't like resorting to race cards.

But please next time keep that vibe outside of work, I really wanted to give this place 5 stars.

Left with my stomach full and satisfied but with

Emotional. Damage.

Throws...