Noburu Ramen and Sushi — Restaurant in Redmond

TL;DR: "This place is not a place of honor." "Nothing valued is here." "What was here is dangerous and repulsive to us." "The danger is still present in your time as it was in ours."

Pretend this place doesn't exist.

At first I thought I was just being cranky and was going to cut them some slack for being new. But nope! This meal was a trainwreck from start to finish. Filthy flatware, terrible food, uncomfortable seats, and obnoxious service all added up to the worst meal we've had since we snarked our way through the debacle at Lucky Strike.

Where to start? Ok, walking in the door we were verbally accosted by an unmasked kid who insisted on walking us through the giant point of sale screen. So while we were blocking the entry, we had to share our meal choices in big bold color with everyone behind us. It being our first time there, it took us a while, as we were being harangued by the kid. And people came in behind us. Really unpleasant.

After choosing our food, we were guided by one of the staff to a table that I thought was fine until my dining companion started complaining about how uncomfortable the chair was. I was in the booth half and it wasn't that bad, but he's not a large guy and he said the chair was unpleasant on his back and backside.

For $8, they dumped six tiny pieces of salmon maki in front of us with a side of wasabi and disinfectant-flavored ginger. That could be avoided; the improperly cooked rice mush in the sushi roll could not.

The unwashed plates couldn't be avoided, either. The first plate my dining companion got still had a price (?) sticker attached to it. Fortunately, the server saw it immediately and replaced it. The replacement plate still had adhesive and dust on it. As did the third plate he got to replace the first two. They never washed our plates. Disgusting.

But the ramen, you ask, what about the ramen? Just as bad as everything else. We both got the black garlic tonkotsu and there wasn't a single thing in that bowl that should have been put in our bodies. We did, because we paid for it, but my companion didn't even finish his bowl.

The broth was overly fatty; the char siu was flavorlessly boiled, lacked color, and tasted unpleasantly gritty; the menma was woody and cheap; the garlic oil was overpowering; there was no corn (small blessing, that); the ajitsuke tamago was flavorless and over-gelid; and the ramen noodles were... it was a step above Top Ramen, but not by much. Neither I nor my companion were fond of the texture, flavor, or doneness. He didn't bother to finish. I only did because I hate throwing away money.

We both agreed this is some of the worst food and service and cleanliness we've run across in our restaurant outings. Terrible service, uncomfortable seating, cheap and gross food, and unclean plates all add up to no stars from the both of us. Google forces one star, and they don't even...

TL;DR: extremely generous noodle proportions. Really fresh toppings. Broth flavorful and not overly salty or fatty!

Parking: large shared lot.

Atmosphere: music too quiet to hear, air is filled with echoey conversation, dinner bell dings, and sounds of the kitchen. Sound is not unbearable, but does sound like a full gymnasium with a built in kitchen, haha.

Kid friendly: high chairs and booster seats available upon request.

Take note of the color coordination of bowls--black bowls with white spoons and white bowls with black spoons. Pretty neat detail! The sushi plates with stairs are also really cool.

Service: order at pay at the kiosk and then be seated OR be seated and scan the QR code on the table to order and pay. You will be provided a bottle and cup(s) to water yourself. The Excellent Food Safety Rating is a plus. Food was edible temperature when brought to the table and wasn't piping how like it was fresh off the grill or out of the pot--I personally prefer my food really hot at first to know that is is freshly made and cooked to the right temperature.

Menu: on the kiosk or via a scannable QR code at your table. No descriptions but there are photos of the food.

Takoyaki: a bit too sweet in my opinion. Each ball contains 1-2 small pieces of octopus and the breading is a bit on the mushy side. Was served like warm, which I wasn't really a fan of. Overall the taste was fine but I wouldn't go out of my way to order it again.

Ramen: there are a TON of noodles -- very generous helping but you will run out of toppings quickly before finishing the noodles. Less soup than noodles I'd say when comparing to other ramen shops. I found myself moving the noodles aside to reach for some soup. Yes, the noodles reach all the way down to the bottom of the bowl!

Tonkatsu Ramen: rich broth that's not overly salty or greasy! The pork chashu is cut really thinly and doesn't really stand out in the bowl at all in terms of flavor or texture. I found more tastebud satisfaction from the other toppings honestly.

Creamy Chicken Ramen: creamy chicken alright! Perfect amount of salt but the cut of chicken was ever so slightly on the dry side.

Toppings: Great toppings! Bean sprouts are nice and crunchy, mushrooms have a great bouncy texture, corn is juicy and sweet, bamboo shoots are springy, egg was egg-cellently...

Excellent food, terrible service. Orders are taken through an app. We were offered paper menus, but no one ever came to take our orders, so we had to use our phones anyway. That left one person at our table playing waiter and relaying our orders to the app. Apparently there is a kiosk in front to order from--we were greeted and seated before we could use it. The sushi rolls came out at the same time as the appetizers, while the other entrees came later, which was a minor annoyance. The wait staff completely avoided the right half of the restaurant; we could not even flag someone down. Our water was never refilled, we couldn't ask for extra napkins (and they don't have paper towels in the bathroom, so you're completely on your own if you need more than one). Our plates weren't bussed until we were standing up to leave. We waited half an hour for a check. The sign on the table says you can pay through the website, but we weren't given the option while ordering and after the meal it didn't remember our order--we could only order more. Empty plates, empty glasses, no wait staff for half an hour. Eventually we flagged someone down, and they got us checked out. And it was only THEN, as we were standing up, that they decided to bus our table, forcing the folks on the booth side of the table to sit back down and wait for the waiter to clean the table and get out of the way. Any one, two, even three of these things I could look past. But then their checkout system has the gall to ask for a 15-18-20% tip! For what? It's the worst of every world. If it was completely self-service, we could have ordered faster, got our own water and napkins, bussed our dishes, had a pleasant conversation over a clean table, and left 45 minutes sooner. This awful hybrid self-service-but-not left us sitting at a dirty table with nothing to drink and no napkins, distracted looking for a waiter. The food was excellent, though. The rolls were tight and delicious, the ramen was...