HiroNori Craft Ramen — Restaurant in Orange

This location lives up to the concept of “hole in the wall.” It is tucked inside a tiny corner of a medical park on the first floor. I love one-room ramen shops like this, the fact that it was packed an hour before closing told me I was potentially in for something good!

In terms of the ramen… Maybe their team was just tired out because of how busy it was so close to close. I got the vegan ramen and my fellow diner got the chicken shoyu. Of the two of us, I was the lucky one which tells me a lot about the quality of the food at this location.

It turns out I prefer hakata style noodles. This location uses thick cut noodles which weren’t really my cup of tea as they were both gummy and chewy at the same time, kind of like eating a Slavic dumpling as a noodle. To me it was really a miss, and I like Slavic dumplings.

The broth itself was fantastic and served at a good temp, but my broccolini came out cold and was INCREDIBLY oily. I could tell the flavor of it would have been on point if it had been served warm still, but the cold broccolini situation was just not working with this dish.

The highlight of this place was the staff: One lady in particular was totally crushing it. She ran the kitchen, the front, and the dining room. She is honestly amazing and I wish I could rate on her alone, but the food here left me wanting in a state where there are so many good vegan options. My dining partner did not even finish their ramen because it was so mid.

After the hype, I was honestly let down. I just keep sticking with my standard (Maru) for now. Especially with...

This place is somewhat hard to find. The entrance is behind the 759 main entrance. 759 is an office building, so when the doors are closed outside of Mon-Fri office hours, one needs to ring the doorbell and wait for a staff to come out to take one inside.

Ramens are good here, and service incredible. Other than that, I won't recommend other items on their menu.

Crispy chicken was too burnt and salty. Chicken rice bowl used generic Teriyaki sauce with dry chicken pieces. No impressed at all. Tonkotsu ramen is good, though nothing special. It's probably as good as it gets in continental USA. Hawaii and Japan still offer better ramen IMO. Vegan ramen is highly recommended! There is no way one can find this vegan option in Hawaii or Japan. The sesame/soy broth tastes even richer than bone broth.

This place is rather costly. When I first visited HiroNori in Irvine couple years back, a ramen costed $15, which was rather expensive already. Now it's almost $20 each, even more expensive. Also, the place is tiny and stinks. We walked out of this store smelling like we walked out of a BBQ place. The inconvenient access is also sub-par. Will not be back; we very much prefer to travel to Hawaii or Japan instead. If we crave vegan ramen once in a blue moon, we will...

The rating reflects more on the experience rather than the food itself. Server spilled water all over the back of my shirt, of course on a day in which it was also raining outside. They apologized, which is cool and understandable, servers spill things, however at multiple different restaurants whenever this happened, there was usually some form of compensation, like a free appetizer or a portion off of the bill. They still had the audacity to charge a service charge for a table of 5 (2 kids and 3 adults). Sure, I’m not entitled to any compensation and I definitely wouldn’t care for it if it were a mom and pop shop. But this is an establishment with multiple restaurants, they could definitely give some sort of compensation however small to give the customer a good experience. This type of service is definitely a reason why I would not feel guilty with not tipping or minimally tipping (18% for spilling all over me? Yeah no).

Food is good, no complaints, one of the more better ramen places. Servers and apparently management don’t care about your experience though, so it definitely leaves a bad taste...