Shaka Ramen — Restaurant in Oʻahu

Came here for late night ramen, it is the typical franchise type ramen shop.

Honestly the food wasn't great, compared to the other ramen shops just like this one, I thought they were going to have different things on their menu but alas, it was basically the same as all the other places.

It was pretty empty around 9pm on a Thursday.

We ordered two ramen, zaru soba, and fried rice.

The black garlic ramen was an absolute fail, it had NO flavor, not even garlic flavor. It felt like the soup base was water, and nothing else. The toppings were fine, but because the soup base was terrible, they all tasted like nothing.

We had to season it up, and even then it was only bearable...

The zaru soba was way over cooked, the noodles were pretty mushy, if you know, they should be on the firmer side.

The spicy ramen was alright, thought it was going to be something else, but it wasn't, the spice level was fine, and the taste was a little better than the garlic ramen.

Fried rice was the same as it is at all places, it was good.

Gyoza was probably the best thing that we ate, coulda had more color on it, but it was the best thing that we had. Overall never coming back here for the food.

The waitress was super sweet and so was the other staff member, which makes me sad not to want to return, but I come for the food first, and...

Let’s start with the good. The chicken katsu was ok. The flavor was somewhat consistent and it had a nice crunch to it without it being all breading. The sauce was nice and paired well with it. The garnished cabbage was unnecessary and just looked messy. Now the bad, the ramen. The ramen was not gross by any means, but ramen is supposed to be rich and flavorful and this was anything but that. The toppings were ok, nothing spectacular. There was an excessive amount of lettuce/cabbage in the ramen that gave it an untruthful appearance of being plentiful, it was more so fluff. The broth was very lackluster, it had an almost diluted flavor as though they were trying to be as frugal as possible with the seasonings and then miscalculated how much broth they needed for the day and tried to make up for it by adding water. Wont be back here.

Update: I got halfway through the katsu, and it just had a dirty taste to it,...

Servers were very almost unsettlingly polite, they made sure we were satisfied, asked if we needed anything and were overall very helpful to my experience. The food wasn't scorching hot but it wasnt cold or lukewarm, just comfortably warm enough to sip, or slurp if you will, and was very rich and flavorful. The noodles were chewy and could melt in my mouth with all the absorbed umami in them. Food was adequately portioned, leaving me full but not nauseatingly so. The general ambiance of the establishment was very peaceful/calm, with employee converstion in the back just barely audible. I am actually suprised that the place was very empty, however there were at least 7 to 14 people coming in to pick up or order takeout dinner within the time frame we were there. Overall very satisfied. Not long after leaving i wanted to come back to have...