Ramen Shop — Restaurant in Oakland

Food Overpriced for salty, uninspiring ramen. Vegetables that don’t make sense in ramen. Broccoli? Jerusalem artichoke? Mustard greens? Broth just tastes like diluted salty soy sauce. One piece of fatty chashu which was supposedly duck but we’re pretty sure was actually pork. Egg was nothing special. Noodles were pretty good at least. My wife is Japanese and we shop at farmers markets almost exclusively. We love Chez Panisse. This should be a hit, but after many tries it is sadly a miss.

Service After a few years of avoidance after a few earlier disappointments, we decide to try again on Valentine’s Day. Our 4 year never fails to eat ramen, they had grab and go cold ramen in paper containers, and we were nearby. Sounded like the perfect night. The duck ramen sounded great but unclear on the website - is it hot? Cold? Paper? Plastic? Ready to go or custom order? Dunno. So we call around 5:45 ready to order. No one picks up but they say to text. Ok. So I text. 10-15 min later they reply. At this point we had already given up on ordering in advance or having our question answered so we just go over there. Our toddler was already tired at 4pm so we knew she needed food and bed. Now it’s already 6, and 530 was ideal dinner time. We were hoping to at least have grab and go by 6 with food on table by 630. Lol.

I manage to connect to a server who is slammed. It’s Valentine’s Day after all. Can we just sit at one of the many tables? No all booked. Ok is the duck ramen hot or cold? Hot. Ok fine whatever let’s just order gotta get food. Then the website won’t let me order. Another 10–5 min. Someone comes to take my order manually. Doesn’t mention it’s 45 min to get food. Which apparently it is. Over an hour after trying to order, finally got food. It’s all in plastic. Hot noodle broth. In plastic. Leaching toxins into our food. Another container with noodles in plastic. That’s why we never get noodle soup to go. And here we are again.

90 min after trying to order I’m finally home. Our 4 year old has long since melted down and going wild way overdue for bed. My wife tells me to eat alone so she can put her down to sleep. Fortunately after some time on the bed they are rejuvenated just long enough to have some kind of dinner together but the food wasn’t even worth it.

Some Valentine’s Day. $75 for this food and experience? I expect it will be several more years before we forget this experience and are willing to try again. Or not. We just had exponentially better ramen last week for 20% lower cost. So I’m gonna...

Ramen Shop manages to turn ramen into art. Visually, the place is very cool with a bar near the front of the shop. The ramen itself is some of the best the Bay Area has to offer (right up there with Ramen Dojo, Izakaya Sozai, Waraku and Orenchi.)

I went with my friend Al, who's been to Japan times. My favorite all time ramen is still Ippudo in NYC. Totto Ramen is also pretty stellar, but with a lighter broth.

Ramen Shop is very different from all of these places. The focus is on local ingredients you might not even necessarily put in ramen (squash blossoms for example.) The flavors and textures are bold and inspired. It's not meant to be "authentic," just good organic food (since these guys are Alums of Alice Waters resto Chez Panisse.) It succeeds wholeheartedly at that!

We tried a bunch of dishes and drinks. I still think about the Seafood Fried Rice. It's spectacular! The hokkaido miso ramen (ground pork belly, shoyu-marinated egg, corn, pickled carrots, arrowhead cabbage, squash blossom and shungiku) is rich and delicious. The shoyu ramen (chashu, marinated egg, scallions, mizuna, and Mendocino nori) is a little lighter. The pork chashu (porcetta style) is the best I have ever had in a bowl of ramen!

To drink we had the Shop Highball (Hakushu 12-year Japanese Whiskey and soda) and Pimm's Punch (Pimm's, cucumber-infused mezcal, lemon, and ginger beer). I love how they have good Mezcal choices!

Don't skip dessert! The Black Sesame Ice Cream Sandwich is unique and delicious.

Service was attentive and friendly too. Just be prepared for pricing. A bowl of ramen can set you back around $16. I can't...

Take away from my "miso ramen" dinner: Tomato soup with noodles... But let's itemize. First, EVERY plate, cup, and bowl had multiple chips revealing the ceramic body underneath and it was obvious that the glaze was flaking off - not enjoyable, and sub par in relation to the price point for their food (being a ceramic buff I was just disappointed that they would even give me chopped dinnerware). Second, the waitress we had didn't even ask if we wanted anything to drink, after she took our order she just walked away - I had to stop her and ask for tea; overall bad start to the dinner but I let it slide and hoped the food was worth it (it wasn't). This brings us to 3 - the food - not only was my "miso ramen" more like the consistency of tomato soup, it had minimal "ground pork belly," which was the main protein of the dish. My partner had the beef ramen and let's just say the amount of depth in either broth - you know, the defining characteristic of good ramen - was about as deep as tomato soup. Mine was WAY too thick, lacking flavor, and didn't taste like ramen at all, hence the quotations. My partner's, while thinner, lacked that rich umami flavor I've come to love from any true ramen. Also, don't get the garlic chili paste - it is neither spicy nor is it flavorful. All and all, the only reason this place got 2 stars was because the waitress seemed genuinely interested in replacing my dish when we asked for the check and I said my food was not really that good. $70 later and I would have preferred to just not even try out this restaurant's...