RAMEN OSAKA — Restaurant in San Jose

ATMOSPHERE: not my style, silly, dimly lit and purple. Luckily the music wasn't loud so our group of 4 could easily carry on our conversation

SERVICE: Really nice table-side manner! She was sweet and took us through the menu and even told us her recommendation and left the pitcher of lychee water on the table so we could top ourselves off. Read our order back to us immediately after we all ordered. BUT failed to notify us that there is a minimum charge of $35 to use card--luckily I halved the bill with one of my friends so we didn't run into a problem--we saw the sign as we paid and thought 'oh well thank goodness we did it this way'

FOOD: (APPETIZER) the popcorn chicken was a huge let down. Soft, barely crunchy, at times odd slightly perfume-like aroma/flavor? Sauce tasted similar to sweet and sour. Uneven pieces, some were as big as the size of my finger others were tiny little crumbs. Flavor pretty bland. We were expecting tiny karage--dont order it. My friend had the shrimp tempura. Thin and bready and not so flavorful. Pass

FOOD: (RAMEN) Surprisingly really good! Most of us ordered the black garlic swapped with the thin egg noddle as recommended by our waitress. Noodles could have been a touch less cooked but it was 11 something at night and we were just hungry. The initial smell of the broth smelled like burnt garlic and it made me a little scared to try but don't let your nose fool you it was really tasty. The chasu was pretty tasty too, but on the thin side. I ordered extra chasu and it seemed like what the normal amount should have been. Egg was perfect. The bamboo shoots were called "wood" by the table but they were eaten after much chewing. The store bought fried garlic on top had a nice flavor but there were chunks that were hard as rock and inedible. Loved The bits of the black woodear fungus. Loved that there was no seaweed sheet in it (i never liked it in my ramen it made the broth too ocean-y).The pork belly wasn't that tender and was extremely salty. The broth was really savory and packed that umami punch you want in ramen, but on the SALTY side. Not as thick of a usual ramen broth but it was creamy. Lots of noodles to chew.

MY FINAL RECOMMENDATION/TIPS:

DISREGARD THE ATMOSPHERE/LIGHTING/MUSIC because at the end of the day (literally around 1130pm) if you're HUNGRY, you only care about the FOOD, and it was relatively close to where I live.

BRING CASH unless you want to buy your mate's meals ($35 min card charge)

DRINK THE LYCHEE WATER it complimented the salty broth and it's free! But you can always ask for reg water

AVOID THE APPETIZERS just go for the ramen (unless you wanna play a mystery game)

WHEN ORDERING THE RAMEN ask for the REDUCED SODIUM broth. if you want a more authentic noodle experience as for the THIN EGG NOODLE. Currently they have 3 types (thin egg noodle, fresh noodle, and thick noodle--dont forget because all bowls are made with the thick noodle if you don't say otherwise) Order 2x EXTRA CHASU because the 1 extra wasn't enough. TAKE OUT the menma/bamboo it's way too hard to chew. TAKE OUT the fried garlic topping.

Overall, in complete honesty-- I will be coming back again and again when I get a late night craving. Plus I want to try some of their deserts and maybe a boba drink.

DON'T DRIVE FAST WHEN LOOKING FOR THIS PLACE, it was a little hard to spot just look for the purple lighting. If you see CITY CAFE(or something similar to that) then...

TL;DR: Disappointing. Unauthentic.

Came here before Covid-19 and ordered unknowingly through doordash as my friend did not know how terrible their food was.

Ramen 1/5: Disaster. Tried both yamachan and myojo noodles in "black garlic" tonkotsu. Both styles were not firm and broke apart easily without even chewing. Soft boiled egg was a bit overdone and did not taste like it was marinated. Most importantly, the broth was lacking in both depth of flavor and body and had absolutely no hint of garlic! Why is it called "black garlic" tonkotsu ramen?? Chashu was a bit leathery and made me wonder how long they've kept it in the freezer.

The base options do not come with egg, corn, black ear fungus, or bamboo slices. Pictures on doordash show all toppings added, which is quite misleading if you've never visited previously.

Katsu 1/5: Not really sure what happened here, but Chicken katsu was extremely dry (a sign they probably not make this dish fresh but rather microwave something from frozen) and no dipping sauce was provided. We had to ask for sauce but it was no use as we abandoned it after 3 pieces.

Tempura 2/5: Heavier than your usual tempura and unseasoned. It was definitely crispy though, but flavorless.

Takoyaki 1/5: I don't know if they actually have a chef making the food as takoyaki is not that hard of a dish to get right. A bit of green onion would not be too much to ask for, and do these guys add any dashi at all? Because all I tasted was batter, soy sauce, and bonito flakes. Let's not even start on the "octopus" piece inside...

I guess I just missed eating takoyaki in Dōtonbori so much I was willing to give this a try.

Peanuts ?/5: Complimentary and over-salted.

Pay attention to the rating guys. An authentic and delicious Ramen place should not be getting 3.5 stars on Yelp. This is equivalent to 1-1.5 star...

As usual I give all the businesses I visit 5 stars, a chance to be perfect. When they don't perform well... Well a start gets deducted. Here we go...

Signage - We had come here on a Tuesday night hoping to ingest some decent ramen. Came to the Evergreen Square looking for this spot it was really hard to find because it was the previous Citi Cafe. So we were looking for this for 5 minutes, then looked at the signage inside and there it was Seiki. (-1) for having Citi Cafe signage larger and more visible than Seiki.

Ambience - Ridiculously loud, they had Trap Nation playing nearly full blast in the back ground, and if that wasn't annoying enough the servers and managers were messing around on the floor with their above average annoying voices. Then I believe the supervisor ( because he was telling the servers where to go) was obnoxiously loud, we couldn't hear ourselves talk. (-1)

Food - ordered fried oyster, black garlic ramen and popcorn chicken.

Fried oyster was not fresh and very mushy.

Popcorn chicken was bland and had to add a bunch of the chili powder to give it some kick.

Ramen was decent, milky goodness, plus for the garlic taste. There were some pork blocks that didn't taste so great. Not like a regular ramen spot the only condiments was chili powder (really? Just chili powder, the ramen isn't that good where you ONLY need chili powder)... Oh and the EGG what was up with the raw egg in the middle? I took one bite and everything fell out... Seriously they don't know how to make a soft boiled egg. It was hard on the outside and raw inside. (-1)

Overall - I was really merciful with only deducting 1 for the horrendous egg. Overall I wouldn't come here again, I would rather drive 10 miles for a good...