MENSHO — Restaurant in Oakland

Umm. Who could say no to ramen especially during winter!? I could say that I am an expert of ramen and Japanese wagyu beef. This place has both! It has JP wagyu A5 beef and Chashu. I gotta try this place. This place also serves sushi handrolls.

I came here on a Monday around 445pm and they open up at 5pm. If I remember their business hours correctly, Monday to Wednesday open at 5pm, Thursday and Friday open at 4pm, and Saturday and Sunday open at 3pm. Meter parking in the neighborhood. I don't know you have to wait, but I always suggest that to go early like before 6pm because that's the time when people usually come out for dinners. The food came out pretty quickly and the turnover time should be quick. I guess the wait time during rush hours would be at least 45 - 60 mins.

My girlfriend and I ordered wagyu beef tartar with wasabi. They made the tartar of the wagyu beef perfectly that you could able to see some tiny fat in the cube of beef. Once you put it in your mouth, you could taste the freshness and softness of the wagyu beef. 5 out of 5 for that. We also ordered A5 wagyu Shoyo ramen and Signature Smoked Toripaitan ramen. I specifically ordered the server to put the wagyu beef on the side because the heat of the broth may overcook it. As you can see in the picture, that's a big piece of nice and juicy beef. I was glad that I ordered it to be placed aside because the broth was steaming hot. The broth to me was alright because it's tasted like soy ramen which I normally don't prefer. However, I liked it and finish the broth as well. On the other hand, if you like a little bit of everything, the signature smoked Toripaitan was the right choice for you. It included duck, regular smoked chashu, wagyu chashu, and adequate veggies like different types of mushroom. I tasted that broth and I liked it because it was creamy. If choosing a broth were an option, I would choose this broth with wagyu beef. haha. I rated both ramen for 5 out of 5! Alright I am also a fan of unagi and I had to order it and my girlfriend had Ika&Ikura. You can see that every handroll is about 10 bucks and the portion of unagi was quite small. So when I bit it, it's hard to get the texture and taste of their fresh unagi. Based on the portion and the prices, it seems to be little expensive and it may not be worth to order them as a regular meal. So I gave this 4 out of 5.

Overall I have had a good experience in here. The staff were nice and on top of everything. Excellent services! Another thing they got me excited that they are looking for franchise. I would like to be part of it. Why? Good Ramen with Wagyu beef. Lol. I may look into it more for an opportunity. If I had it, I would allow customers to choose their own broth like how I would get the creamy broth for wagyu beef! I believe they only have two locations in the Bay Area. One is in X (Twitter) building and then this one. Based on their quality of ramen and broth, it would be a good idea to...

TL;DR: if you’re looking for less-traditional, but amazingly flavorful ramen, check out MENSHO!

Oh wow, what a place, what a meal! This restaurant isn’t what I would call fancy, but the decor is fun, thoughtful, and refined without feeling stuffy. It was also great to see the noodle machines on display and to see little blurbs about ramen and the components of ramen incorporated into the decor in ways that were both informative and interesting.

On to the menu. Half of the ramen options listed are vegan, which was great to see, even though I’m not vegan personally. Further, some of the vegan options looked really appetizing and I could definitely see myself giving them a try.

For appetizers, we got the enoki chips and corn wings, which were both very good. If dressing the enoki with the accompanying lemon wedge, I’d suggest eating the enoki quickly as they are so thin that the lemon juice quickly made them lose their crispness. I really enjoyed the flavor of the corn wings, but they were tough to eat with chopsticks and left my hands feeling a bit greasy, which isn’t a problem overall, but I might request extra napkins if I order them again.

I went with the Spicy Lamb Miso Cumin for my main and added smoked duck chashu (soooo good, though the serving was a little small, but still reasonable considering the preparation of the ingredient vs. price). While not “in your face” spicy, the spicy lamb miso cumin ramen had a pleasant heat that did have me sweating a bit (and I love spicy foods). The lamb was ground, which meant that I got most of the lamb with the spoon, after finishing the noodles, but it was very tasty throughout. My partner felt that the broth was thicker than her preference, but I appreciated the added body. I couldn’t taste much cumin, but with all the toppings and everything, I didn’t actually miss it so much.

To drink, I got a bottle of Born Junmai Daiginjo, which is a dry sake. At $18 for 300ml, it’s delivering flavor above where one might expect at that price and I’d definitely order it again.

Would I eat here again? YES, definitely! Not only is the food good, but the service was great too. If you’re in the area, this is definitely...

Update: I decided to give them another chance and it has been solid now. Never heard from them about the awful food and experience I had before so I'm keeping what I had written originally (1 star review).

Old review: I've been going to Mensho in SF since they opened. I've waited in line to eat there for two hours because it's worth it. I was stoked that they opened in Oakland now in a bigger place. I went there the week they opened and had the matcha vegan ramen and didn't like it. It was too bitter (I normally like matcha so I know how it is), it had way too much cilantro and green onion and lots of some fried vegetable that was really woody and hard to chew. I went for the second time today, craving vegan ramen and turns out they have a different lunch menu that doesn't include vegan ramen, only dry noodles that came with salad. My partner told them they really wanted ramen and later the chef came and said they could make shoyu ramen, which was kind of them. I ordered the Spicy Vegan Mushroodles. I was craving their fried enoki and was happy the noodles had them on the ingredients list. When my food came it had no enoki mushrooms or spicy sauce and no garlic chips. I told the server, a young American guy and he was completely rude to me. At first he said: do you wanna order extra enoki mushrooms? I said No, it's supposed to come with it and it didn't. Then he said Are you talking about bamboo shoots? Because it has it. No, I'm talking about enoki mushrooms. He looked at my bowl and didn't believe me. Luckily I had taken a picture of the menu and of my food when it came. Then he said the menu was wrong and it wasn't supposed to have enoki mushrooms (I don't believe him). He brought me some spicy sauce for me later but never apologized for anything, didn't come back to check on me. The salads were really good but the shoyu ramen was ok, just boring. The mushroodles were very flavorful but missing three ingredients and the customer service was just awful. I'm beyond disappointed about this experience and will go to the one in SF because they are...