Kaizen Ramen — Restaurant in Royal Oak

I really wanted to like this place, but my experience here was a bit of a let down. I'm a huge fan of ramen, so I was really excited to hear Kaizen was opening in Royal Oak especially since they make their noodles in house. We went there about a month after it opened, so I knew going into it there was going to be some kinks. Atmosphere, artwork and space were all positives but customer service and the food was a bit disappointing.

Kaizen is more of a fast, casual restaurant where you grab a menu from the stand, pick out your table, order at the front, collect your number, grab your napkins/utensils, and a server brings you your food at your table. However, when we entered no one greeted us or gave us any direction. I made eye contact with one of the employees and when I said hi to her, I got no response. I would expect for a new restaurant to be more welcoming to customers to improve their experience and encourage them to come back. But no manager walked around the tables asking how their food was and the girl taking the orders wasn't that helpful.

As for the food, I found the broth a bit salty and my noodles were stuck together. Ramen noodles should not do that, but it seems like mine was the only issue since my family's noodles came out just fine. But the real kicker was that they forgot mine and my sister's marinated egg in the Tonkotsu bowl. The egg is an important component of a ramen bowl and for that to be missing was very disappointing.

Overall, I'll probably come back one more time to see if they improve after some more experience but with other ramen places in the area and another one opening soon in Royal Oak my expectations...

Fun place with a little of something for everyone in a group.

Menu has meet, gluten free, and vegan options. But they are a little bit hard to pick out and all the options makes the menu a little overwhelming. Plan for time to review as they encourage people to order before sitting down. We were fortunate with our timing that we could sit and review and then order, but 10 minutes later and we would have had to give our table up for someone who had an order in ahead of us cause it got filled fast.

I ordered a pole bowl which was one of the lighter dishes, but it was a good sized portion and was definitely filling. Both my friend, who also got a poke bowl, and I were surprised by hidden wasabi. My friend actually thought she had all her wasabi scooped out, but apparently not. It was a bit alarming but we survived. We enjoyed great appetizers- the edamame and fried chicken, which came out with all the other food. I generally like it when apps come out before the meal, but I don't think the level of staff would make that easy, so take that into consideration cause the apps may be held until your full order is ready.

Other friends ordered ramen and buns and were content with the flavor of their broths and dishes.

We finished the meal with some green tea mochi ice cream which was great. Loved the textured of the mochi- makes a nice contrast to the creamy smooth ice cream by giving a bit of a gooey mouth feel. Would...

Got dinner with friends here last night and was hoping for yummy food and a cozy atmosphere, but didn’t get what we expected. I sincerely hope this comment helps the restaurant improve!

The place was pretty packed, but we grabbed a table that was dirty that folks had just left. We stood around it for 10 min waiting for someone to clean it off but the staff didn’t. So we started to clear it ourselves then one of the staff came over and apologized and grabbed the dishes and told us he’d be back to wipe the table down - he never returned. So eventually I grabbed some paper towels and used the giant bottle of purel at the front to wipe the table down.

We then ordered and the food took a very long time to come out. People who ordered after us got served first. Someone from the kitchen then came out to tell us they had run out of spicy noodles and could we please pick a different noodle? Eventually the food came out and it was underwhelming. I ordered the salmon poke bowl and what was in the bowl was very tasty but composition was: 70% rice, 20% salmon, 10% all other advertised ingredients. I had hoped this order would have had significantly more veggies+ rather than 3 slices of radish and 10 edemame beans. I asked one of the stafffor more ginger and they forgot about that too.

I do hope to eat there again and I hope it will be...