Cravings Deli — Restaurant in Portage

THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE BOBA DRINKS. It has always been so bad, that it trumps any good experience I've had with any of the ramen:

None of their "vegan" boba drinks are actually made with coconut milk like they say it will be. I think they actually do charge you extra for that. I don't know how they don't have any inventory of coconut milk when they're located inside an Asian grocery store, which is always abundant with at least canned coconut milk, but they always cheat me out by using only water. That makes it taste disgusting. They also lack flavours in the drinks in general, even the drinks with real dairy, because they never put enough flavouring. The white lady at the counter also told me that the ube cream drink was made with taro flavouring, which isn't even the same plant as ube.

All this has been over the course of the last 3 months & I've constantly been disappointed by whomever is in charge of their boba station. Below are all the drinks I've had & how they've been messed up:

ube cream (which wasn't even ube, she straight up told me it was taro, which isn't even the same plant. And it was watery as hell) "vegan" thai tea (supposed to be made with coconut milk, was actually made with just water) buko pandan (also supposed to be with coconut milk, but actually made with water), matcha with the sweet red bean paste (that barely had matcha in it, just...

I came here when this place first opened to try the ramen. Back then, I was not impressed. More recently I've been hearing really good things about the ramen, so I decided to give it another shot. However, I was still very disappointed that they have not made any improvement over such a long period of time. I think, people around SW Michigan, just have never had proper ramen and don't know any better. Anyway, here are the details.

The good:

The flavor of the broth was great, and exactly what I would expect for Tonkotsu. The flavor of the soft boiled egg also was spot on.

The bad:

Not enough broth. This caused the ingredients to sit on top of the noodles instead of in the broth and thus some of them were cold.

They don't make their own noodles. This is common in the US, but you can really tell the difference between fresh and dry noodles.

The pork belly was dry and tough. I could not bite through it, even after struggling with it for a bit and had to just shove the whole piece in my mouth.

The bok choy was not very fresh.

The bamboo had a sour flavor, probably from a can.

Kalamazoo is still lacking a really great ramen spot. If you're looking for ramen, go to Toba. Maybe some of the other dishes here are better, I don't know. I may come back and try a rice dish. If I do I will add to my review, but for now,...

We took a chance on a random restaurant inside of a grocery store on our way back from a trip. It was worth it! Everything our family of four ordered was a hit.

My wife and I had the spicy miso ramen, which was nearly perfect. I could have stood for something a bit more spicy -- I don't mind when food makes me sweat -- but the flavor profile was where it needed to be. We also split an order of vegan rolls, which had such a great chew to them and tasty peanut sauce on the side.

Our older child had the shoyu ramen, which is as close as we could get to what she liked at another ramen place (butter shoyu). She liked it. She just could have done without the vegetables, which is more a matter of her age than how they were made. The website said there was a kid ramen we could have ordered instead, but that wasn't present in-person. It worked out.

Our youngest, the pickiest eater of us all, was set in front of a side order of noodles and chicken. No complaints.

The next time we take a trip that takes us anywhere close to the restaurant, we'll likely stop by again. This was seriously good, filling ramen. We have good ramen close to home, but I wouldn't mind if Cravings Deli were somehow able to move closer to my...