Wu's Ramen Orland Park — Restaurant in Orland Township

Decent ramen but for a series of small missteps.

First impression: The interior of the restaurant is very aesthetically pleasing in an upscale American meets Japanese theme. The music, however clashed with this atmosphere as it was a vaguely pop-y crowd pleasing music. I've heard the same music in the local fitness center. While I agree that going with J-Pop would be a mistake for the demographic in Orland Park, instrumental music instead would have tied in much better with the visual theme going on in the restaurant.

The menu had very few spelling mistakes. I didn't look hard, both were in the dessert section. The backside having a breakdown of what was both extra topping lists and a further explanation of what they are was nice. But the appetizer section didn't elaborate on what the items actually were.

I ordered tea, an appetizer, and two bowls of ramen, one spicy and one plain. Everyone has had edamame and gyoza ect these days, so I chose tako balls, both because I enjoy takoyaki in general and because it's a novelty for the area. For the uninformed, as the menu does not say, it's minced octopus and dough, fried, and then (in Wu's iteration) laid across a sweet-chili sauce.

It was delicious. It had a very good flavor, savory and umami meets a sweet hint. It also was not cooked enough. The octopus was icy in comparison to the warm dough, a sign of mismatching temperature before frying. In justification, as they are recently opened, I am sure that it's not ordered very frequently, and so the octopus was kept in the chiller, which is good for health concerns and not wasting food as foot traffic is currently indeterminate, but bad because as a general rule you don't cook food that is still cold. It leads to cold spots, which I experienced in multiple balls.

Ramen was visually appealing, the images captured so far do an injustice for bowl sized, as they are vortex-shaped and therefore deceptive in the amount of ramen they hold. This lead to very little sinking into the bowl, so the ingredients floated pleasingly. The chives were a little weird, typically it's not an ingredient stringed, but they placed it with the sprouts so it 'matched' visually. The wood ear mushrooms were delightfully springy, and the soft-boiled egg was perfectly done.

Spicy Tonkatsu: Pork Chashu is braised pork belly. The meat was super tender, so it had good texture and taste, but the way it was served impeded eating, as the slices were cut 3/4's down, leaving a connecting strip across the bottom. Visually it might be appealing, but although the pork was tender, it was still hard to cinch cut with chopsticks. Unfortunately, the broth itself did not live up to it's 'spicy' namesake.

If you seek to add the chili paste in the container at each table to increase spice, please be sure to do it in small increments or you will not be able to enjoy the savory broth at the end of the ramen.

Shoyu: The broth was a very good shoyu broth. Unfortunately, this is where I was most disappointed. Everything so far has tasted good. The takoyaki has excellent flavor. The pork belly is delicious. The chicken was clearly well marinated before cooking and was tender.

Only the noodles themselves and the broth were warm. Although they were aesthetically arranged floating on top of the broth, the wood-ear mushrooms, the bamboo shoots, the chives, and the chicken were all cold.

Wu's can benefit from additional blanching of pre-cooked foods before serving, and just temperature monitoring in general.

I sincerely hope that they correct this, as taste wise, the broths have good flavor, the meats have good flavor, the crunchy texture difference between the wood ear mushroom and bamboo versus the soft chewy ramen and meat is done very well.

I do recommend trying Wu's. Flavor profile wise, everything is already there. Would that my experience were better, but nothing was bad, and everything easily fixed. I hope this helps someone out, be it someone trying to decide to try it or the staff to learn from...

I used to like this place because the food was always great. I was considered a regular and would bring my friends to this place. Ever since what happened yesterday, I will never go back there. I brought one of my friends there and we were enjoying our food and drinks without complaints. When it came to getting the check, I saw that our meal came up to $68.30. The price wasn't the problem, it was the gratuity guidelines at the bottom of the receipt. To express "gratitude" for what we ordered, this place wanted us to leave tips over 20%. That would've made our meal over $80. I was shocked when I saw this and knew I would've have to pull from my checkings to do a tip like that. I still wanted to leave a tip and my friend said I didn't have to do their tip, so I put down for $5 for the tip. Our waitress comes back to take the check book and told us to have a good day and see you next month. My friend and I weren't even out of our seats yet and the waitress (Vivian) turns back around, blocks me from leaving, puts the check down in front of me, and jabs her finger to where the gratuity tip section was. I was shocked and frozen in place as she's looking at me, smiling, and demanded that I tip her more. SHE WOULDN'T LEAVE ME UNTIL I AGREED TO TIP HER OVER THE 20%. Pressured, I scratched out what I put down on the check and tipped what she wanted. Afraid, I told my friend let's go before anything else happens. We left, and I told her WE ARE NEVER GOING BACK THERE. The audacity of that waitress for demanding a bigger tip, especially since she knew I was a regular who liked coming there and loved the food. So thank you Vivian, you won't see me next month because you ruined my experience because of your greed and harassment for thinking you're owed more then what we initially tipped you. I'm going elsewhere for ramen. Good food isn't worth going to this place because the service there is awful. Anyone that decides to go there or any other chains around, PLEASE take cash just in case because they take your card out of view to charge you for your meal and I've seen other reviews very similar to mine about how they've had trouble with the waitresses there for either...

Update: Went there again last night and prices went up sooooo high!!!! For some ramen. I don't think I will go back again. It was $11.99 which was reasonable but now it's $14.99 for some ramen. I could make this myself since I'm asian. Oh well. Another one bites the dust.

My girlfriend and I was in the mood for some yummy ramen for lunch and decided to visit Wu's for the first time. Plenty of parking so that is always a plus. We both ordered the miso ramen and it was delicious. The broth was a tiny bit salty but with the ramune drinks that they ordered it paired very well. I always feel like if you're having ramen.....you need some ramune 😂 The original ramune is still my favorite but we also had strawberry and orange which we brought home to our boys.

Back to the ramen, it had 1 piece...yes 1 piece of seaweed but I didn't mind that but the pork belly was the best part of the ramen. Corn...well...it's corn so it's smart of them to pair that in the soup. There's always an egg on top. Ramen almost always have an egg and that was good.

Gyoza was the BEST part! The sauce was fantastic!!! Don't change that. And it was soooo crispy! I'm so glad we ordered the gyoza appetizer.

Overall it was a great experience and price was very reasonable for lunch....and it was actually pretty filling and I can EAT!!! I will definitely visit Wu's again in the...