In the Nood Ramen Bar — Restaurant in Opelika

I am from out of town. I was about to hit the road, until I drove past this restaurant. The design of the restaurant was so eye catching that I turned around and decided to stop to get dinner. Unfortunately, the atmosphere of the restaurant is not reflected in the quality of the food. It would appear that this new restaurant opened a little bit too soon than what it was ready for. The kitchen staff seemed to be untrained. First off, our orders were completely switched up and had missing toppings. In addition, there were quite a few issues with the food itself: the noodles were undercooked making them chunky and clumped together, the broth was incredibly sour, and the $3 hard boiled egg was fridge cold.

I truly do not like confrontation, but knowing that this is a new restaurant, I decided that I would try to share my experience with the server. I ended up speaking to the owner. Thankfully, the owner was kind and explained that the kitchen staff was still working on their techniques. He thoughtfully offered to remake us the ramen so he could show us how the dish is supposed to taste. Since we had to get on the road we were not able to take him up on his offer. He sent us away with little Japanese treats instead. I did not feel comfortable directly asking for a refund, although that is what I feel would have been the best way to mend the situation considering it was a ~$23 bowl of really unappetizing food. Nonetheless, “In the Nood” seems to have a lot of potential. The owner was kind, the atmosphere is well curated and designed, and the other staff were friendly. They simply need to tighten up their service and ensure that their employees are sufficiently trained to create an edible bowl of ramen.

I wish you guys the best and hope you can work it all...

Passed by the restaurant numerous times on the beer routes that I run. Decided to try it today since I got off early and was not disappointed. The restaurant is Black owned, and the owner is very friendly and personable. They have different Ramen broth styles that you can have (miso, shoyu, spicy Korean, etc.), different proteins, different vegetables, etc. There is seating outside and inside the restaurant at the countertop. The decor is Asian/Ramen inspired, and the restaurant is clean. They have a small staff, so there may be a slight wait for service while they’re in the kitchen getting meals ready. Good R&B/hip-hop is usually playing through the speakers. I was definitely jamming out while eating. Lol.

I went with the Korean style with pork belly, roasted chicken, dumplings, fish cakes, ginger, green onions, fried onions, and marinated eggs. Also got a bowl of sticky rice.

The rice was a good consistency and had a teriyaki and Yum Yum sauce on top.

The Ramen was awesome. The Korean style broth was slightly spicy and smoky flavored. The pork belly pieces were crispy and flavorful, the roasted chicken had bits of fat with it. The noodles had a good consistency to them. The marinated eggs were awesome. You could taste the marinade and the slightly cooked yolk was great. The dumplings were just as amazing. You could taste the differences in the pork and the chicken that was used in the filling come along with the flavor of the broth juices inside of them.

Looking forward to eating there again to try the...

I have never in my life written a review of anywhere before but I feel that I have to after this. I’ll start off by saying that the woman I talked to there wasn’t the most rude person I’ve ever met, but that is literally the only compliment I can give this place. Fist off there are no prices on the menu, so me and my girlfriend order a bowl of Raman and a bun for each of us. When given my receipt I see that they were charging an outrageous price of $65 for the food. However, I grit my teeth a little and give a fair 20% tip with a smile on my face holding out hope that this is going to be the best Raman I have ever tasted due to the insane price tag. After a shockingly long wait time, we got food so comically terrible that I have been laughing about it more than getting angry. My girlfriend’s noodles were not at all what she ordered and were severally undercooked. Mine also were not in the broth I ordered and weren’t very good at all. So after this one would assume that the buns were good, right? Haha, nope. They were sitting in a bowl literally still half full of water and were so soggy you couldn’t pick them up to eat them without turning into something reminiscent of a pulpy soup. Maybe I just came in the middle of a terrible kitchen meltdown because I actually can not believe this place can be that bad and still think it’s reasonable to charge the prices...