Alkaline — Restaurant in Norfolk

Horrible Service

Seen this restaurant on an older episode of " Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" ( food network channel). I was super excited to see a Virginia local restaurant !

My husband and I decided to visit for date night. When we arrived the hostess stated it would be a 20 to 30 min wait , do you want to sit at the bartop?

We declined and had to ask if we could sit and wait. This is when my spider senses start to tingle. I shouldn't have to ask ,it should be offered. I Ignored the we wasn't welcome feeling.

I must admit the atmosphere was nice they had nice music, nice lighting. Appeared to be a over all great place.

Entering the lounge area I noticed there were two open tables . After 20 minutes of waiting the hostess says someone cancelled allow me to seat you. I feel she wasn't being untruthful. I'm feeling at this point people of my ethnicity may not be as welcomed. And they noticed we wasn't leaving.

The hostess comes to the table, do not speak just says are you ready to order? I asked if there are any recommendations because this was our 1st experience.

I asked the hostess for a straw which I never received to this day. Lol.

She Acknowledges that she had forgotten the straw , says she was too busy ! Went back to the bar to get my husband's drink and still come back without my straw.

They ensured they sat us in the back of the restaurant and just to speak ...the only reason we were offered a table is because I went to the restroom and seen the two open spaces.

Our food finally arrived & the food was so cold and untastful. I am very diverse when it comes to different cultures and experiencing their dining . I feel as if the restaurant did not want people of color there that night.

The sticky wings were on the food network show I previously mention. The flavor was great but feel as if we were sold the oldest wings they had.

We both ordered the beef noodle ramen bowl and it was horrible! Bad choice

I feel if we were treated better this would be a place to revisit , just to try something else.

I feel maybe that night they did not want to serve African Americans . For this I will not recommend anyone of my ethnicity to revisit on a Saturday night...

We've always known about Alkaline but never had a chance to try it out until recently. Currently it shares space with Pendulum Fine Meats and Market in the Colley area of Norfolk, though they're planning to relocate to another location in the near future. Everything about Alkaline was just right. The food was spot on. The dinuguan nachos are definitely worth a try. It's an unusual choice for a Filipino spin on nachos but it works and is quite tasty, plus extra chips were offered at no extra charge. We had the tonkotsu and shoyu ramen. The broth for both were spectacular and what you would expect from a ramen house, rich and chock-full of flavor. The noodles were prepared perfectly and the chili oil on the side added just the right amount of kick, not overpowering but enough to get the nose a little runny. We tried the only dessert they had in the menu, the miso butter cake. While it was a very delicious cake, I was a little disappointed that the miso flavor didn't stand out as much as expected, in fact it tasted just like normal caramel to me. Service of course was top notch, they take good care of their customers. Everything was priced pretty fairly and you will get your money's worth. A word of advice, there will be a line right at opening so get there early and be prepared to wait for a bit outside. There was enough space to hold approximately 40 or so people but be prepared to wait for a table if you don't arrive at opening. As for parking, there's a dedicated parking lot right in front. Check first to see if there's an open spot before testing your parallel parking skills on Colley. With that said, it's probably the best ramen house in the Hampton Roads area and we will definitely look forward to...

So, I’ll open with saying that the food is very good. I lived in Japan for four years, and I love ramen. Their menu and ramen is more of a delicious fusion rather than traditional fare. The back of the house does a great job!

I don’t know if the front of the house was having an off night but there were definitely some issues. When my husband and I arrived we waited a little too long to see the hostess. And in a small restaurant with 12-ish tables and 12-ish bar seats, the wait time for the hostess was kind of, “wamp-wamp.” The waitress was definitely trained to fish for up sales/up charges. And I get it, servers wage is $2.20 and raising the check should raise your tip. But her approach and communication style was weird.

We waited about 20 minutes for our drinks. And the bar wasn’t busy enough to justify the wait. And when I asked our server as she cleared our appetizers her response was kind of silly. There was a 10 top waiting in the bar area but they weren’t pounding drinks. Also there were like four other tables, and we didn’t see cocktails on any of them. So a 20 minute wait is not right.

It felt like the attention to detail just fell apart. I noticed that in a nearly empty restaurant a couple that sat down after us were seated at a table that had burnt out lighting. And our server wouldn’t take the additional two minutes to check on all three of her tables in her section. I had to flag her down to order another round of drinks, and I know how much that sucks as a server/bar tender to be flagged down. I know it’s annoying and rude, and I absolutely hate doing that. For a $100 dinner I was very underwhelmed with the service.

But again, I do want to state that the kitchen pumps out some...