Kayo's Ramen Bar — Restaurant in Portland

Kayos makes some of the best ramen in town, hands down. I'm the type of person that once I find a place that has what I like, I'll go there every time. Kayos WAS my ramen spot. I've been coming here regularly since I moved to Portland 7 years ago and I've recommended it to so many people. That being said, you may have guessed that I'm about to complain.. and you'd be correct.

TLDR: The new changes made under what I can only guess is new management have really dulled the Kayos experience for me and everyone in my party last night. To the point where I think I may find another ramen spot. If it's your first time, you might not notice anything is amiss. But like other recent reviewers have said, as a long time fan, I'm really disappointed.

My in-laws were in town and my fiance and I were excited to take them to Kayos since they loved it when we took them last year. I was so excited to have my favorite ramen now that soup season is here!

The first thing we notice is that it's now counter service. Big meh. Look, I know counter service is cheaper and more efficient for staff and it's very common in Portland but this was one place that previously felt a bit more elevated. Not to mention kayos had killer wait staff that I enjoyed being able to order from and ask questions. I liked coming here for date nights but now I think it's more of a sweatpant place. 'Get in and get out' is the vibe I got this time. Everything felt very rushed.

They have a water station now which, ok, every counter service place has but... PAPER CUPS?! Absolutely not. What is this McDonald's? Come on y'all, be for real. Paper cups just feel so silly beside the ceramic ramen bowl.

Another thing I noticed was the menu. They've taken the menu down to about half its previous size. This alone wouldn't have upset me if it weren't for everything else. Hey, I've seen restaurant impossible and I worked in the food industry for a decade. The menu is always the first thing to go. But just know, it's so glaringly obvious that you're cutting corners here and not gracefully. Also the bar is now unseated and there are only a few drink options where I believe they had a full sake selection and more drinks to choose from before.

Overall, the food is still so good. The menu staples still stand and that's really the only thing that will have me considering coming back. A restaurant is not only it's food, it's the experience. I don't want to sit in a back alley with my paper cup and eat ramen. I want to have a nice time, ask questions, drink out of a real cup, and definitely not be rushed out the door. I really hope whoever is making these changes will take the recent reviews to heart because the new Kayos experience...

What an uncomfortable and unpleasant dining experience we had!

We sat outside at a sticky table. Thinking they forgot to clean, we went to another table, which was also sticky. Apparently, what they use to clean the tables is melting the finish on the tables. Um?

I ordered a cucumber salad to start, with black vinegar dressing. I received a small bowl with cucumber sticks sitting in a shallow pool of vinegar. The vinegar wasn't reduced into a dressing so it rolled right off the weirdly cut cucumber pieces. I was ravenous so I just ate it but it was bleak-- and I absolutely love vinegar.

I ordered a vegan broth but the sauce I chose came with the option for pork (which I chose) or tofu. I'm not vegetarian at all, I just historically haven't enjoyed pork broths and the vegan broth ingredients sounded tasty. I say this because our waitress would be so confused by the previous two sentences when I said them to her that it doomed our meal.

My friend's girlfriend gets her dumpling order. I am given a bowl of ramen that isn't what I ordered, by mistake. What arrives for me is not spicy (I wanted the spiciest they had), not hot (as in, a high enough temperature to call itself a soup), and greasy. I ask for hot sauce and am given a tablespoon of chopped peppers, with no explanation. My friend has no food because they made a mistake with her order.

I send my food back because the thought of paying for soup that isn't even hot is infuriating to me. The nadir of the experience was when we were trying to figure out how much to tip but, because they run cards with the same iPads they use as POS for all the other tables, our waitress was hovering less than a foot away from me while I was trying to calculate her tip. I actually had to ask her if she planned to just stand there or if she could give us some semblance of privacy for one second because I'm not accustomed to doing tip math while my server is staring blankly and impatiently at me. She didn't even have the check ready when we had asked to justify this rushing; she had sifted through a wad of receipts from her pocket in front of us.

Not everyone needs to run a restaurant. This is the type of place that was probably just fine as a food truck in a hip part of town and may be encumbered by the expectations people have for glossy tabletops and...

A friend told me this was the best ramen place so I’ve been wanting to try it for a while. I ordered takeout for two.

We ordered: Tan tan with pork -medium spice Vegan miso with tofu - mild/medium Kale potstickers Pineapple and ginger fried rice Cheesecake

There were some issues with ordering. First, the online menu is not up-to-date and there are no prices on it. Second, when I called the order in the woman who was took the order seemed distracted and it was hard to hear her over the extremely loud music. I was trying to give her information on the spice levels but she didn’t seem to be listening. She didn’t repeat back my order either so I did.

When I picked up the food it smelled great. The ramens tasted good, but I was surprised that they didn’t really have anything in them except the broth, noodles, & protein. There was literally 3 spinach leaves and 1-2 tablespoons of green onions. The vegan miso wasn’t as warming and satisfying as I’d hoped. Also, as I suspected, our spice level requests weren’t taken.

The fried rice was a gigantic let down. It was plain fried rice that came with a half cup of crushed pineapple that had the tiniest bit of ginger in it that I guess goes onto the plain fried rice.

And as someone else noted, $5 for a slice cheesecake is a ridiculous price. They use a 5” cheesecake pan and get 6 slices out of it. I’m glad it’s a small portion, but asking $5 is a bit rich. $3 would be more appropriate.

In all this cost $66 with a 20% tip. Honestly I’m not 100% sure that what we got was what we ordered. As it really felt like things were incomplete with both the ramens and rice.

I’d try this place again since the flavors of the ramen were good, but I’d eat there to see if this is just one of those places where the food doesn’t work well in takeout and to clarify what’s actually...