Bakudan Ramen — Restaurant in San Antonio

I want to start off by saying that the staff was accommodating and friendly. I would give the staff five stars alone, but the food was awful. I would give the food zero stars if possible.

First off, the appetizers. We ordered takoyaki which looked quite different from the pictures people uploaded on google, which is fine, many places tend to change their menu. The takoyaki didn't taste bad, but it's the same ones that I've gotten in the frozen section from Tim's or Minnano Japanese market. I can tell by the familiar taste and the way that it was shaped. Authentic, fresh takoyaki should be a perfect ball but the ones on these had a flat bottom which was a dead giveaway. I personally like the frozen takoyaki and enjoy making it at home since it's convenient, but not at a restaurant. We also ordered karaage. It was very far from being authentic, and that's fine, as long as it tastes good. It was just alright.

Now, to talk about the ramen. We ordered the garlic ramen and shoyu ramen. This is the worst ramen I've had in my life. I've had plenty of ramen, both in San Antonio and in Japan, and this was absolutely awful. I'll talk about the good first though. I think the presentation of the food was nice, and the portion was fair. The eggs tasted delicious and was definitely the highlight. Now the bad part. I was trying to figure out what they used for the thin noodles in the shoyu ramen. It was very similar to either soba or somen noodles, which definitely does not go with ramen. The thick noodles in the garlic ramen were better and closer to ramen noodles but still not quite there. The noodles, especially the thin ones were also clumped together, so they need to be shaken more once they are fully cooked to get the water out. It's an essential step. The broth for both of the ramen we ordered looked and tasted like it used the same water that the noodles were cooked in which gave it a very bad flavor and gave the shoyu ramen a opaque color when it should be more transparent. It was very bland. I'm not sure if we just happened to get a bad batch, but I did take note when walking to the bathroom that there were many ramen bowls at empty tables that had only been barely or half eaten, so I feel bad for the people that had this as their first ramen experience. The ramen was also lukewarm and I'm not sure if it was intended or was sitting around for awhile before it got to our table.

I will not be eating here again or recommend this place to anyone. I do hope the owners take this into consideration and look over the menu again because there's a lot of simple changes that can be made to make the food taste better through better ingredients...

It was decent. The restaurant definitely gives off more of a a “club” sort of atmosphere, with the music blaring non-stop from the speakers.

Right off the bat, the hostess didn’t really make my fiancée and I feel welcome, just glancing at us as we walked up and giving us a curt “I’ll be back” before walking off - Sure, that’s fine. Thanks for telling us.

But when she comes back, she asks us in a rather bored and monotonous voice: “just for 2? Outside or inside?” - no “hello”, “welcome”, or “how are you doing?” Okay then… We state that we would like to be seated inside and she brings us to the table closest to the door, this is also fine. But she does just that. No “your server will be with you shortly” or anything. Yikes.

Our server stops by our table shortly after and he was nice and friendly - which is great considering our hostess wasn’t exactly the epitome of such. He makes sure to get us drinks and put in our orders for appetizers right away, which did not take long to get to us at all. In fact, the service was fantastic here. We didn’t find ourselves waiting much at all, both for appetizers and entrees. The two of us shared some chicken karaage and my fiancée got the shrimp tempura ramen, which he said was alright; while I had a couple of appetizers as my dinner: spicy tuna tacos and takoyaki. The takoyaki was alright, nothing stunning and it certainly wasn’t the best I’ve ever had. The spicy tuna tacos were also just alright. A bit small (props to our server for letting me know this too, I chose to have them away despite the portion size) but they were okay.

As we walked out, someone who we believed to be the manager thanked us for coming in and wished us well on the rest of our day.

All in all, it was a decent experience - just that. The service from our server was quick which is immensely appreciated, but the lack of greeting or any speaking in general from the hostess was off-putting. The food was decent, but given how mind-numbingly loud the music was, it is unlikely that we will return any time soon; considering there are better ramen places with a bit more of a preferable atmosphere. We didn’t have drinks, so we can’t comment on that, but keeping in mind the whole club-like environment, it might be good for just that...

Today my girlfriend and I visited Bakudan Ramen, which up to this point had been a regular thing for us...today that changed.

Our visit had been fairly usual, until a gaggle of patrons crowded around us, completely disregarding current social distancing guidelines, to get drinks at the bar (which we then witnessed leaving the premises, big TABC no-no). Being crowded as we were, my girlfriend had discreetly coughed into her sleeve after a joke brought us both to laughter (I had coughed from this as well), normally a benign occurrence, yet one of these dissidents proceeded to fabricate a tale to the management about my lady coughing into that patron's drink!

The manager on duty, David, had brought this accusation to my attention as fact, without ANY regard for the opposing side of the story, and behind my lady's back while she was away from the table. I fervently told him was not the truth, and was promptly ignored. Management quickly left the area upon her return, at which point I immediately brought this to her attention, so she could speak to management about the situation as well. After tracking David down again, she was met with a combative attitude, and quick dismissal by David, and subsequently myself, after attempting to readdress the issue each twice.

We are both HIGHLY disappointed in this management, and how this situation was handled, as well as being personally LIVID as to how they respond to women. There is some evident sexism towards women going on here, as well as complete disregard for loyal customers, and the health & safety of their clientele during this pandemic.

Although we are fans of the bartenders, and food and beverages at Bakudan, I strongly advise against visiting this establishment until it undergoes a revamp of it's upper management, as being falsely reprimanded was not why we chose to patronize this...