Kaiju Noodle Bar 怪獣ヌードルバー — Restaurant in San Juan

NY prices for a place located in Santurce. First of all those complaining about the price, you are not only paying for the food, you are paying for the atmosphere too. This place has the atmosphere and i get why is so popular. Is a novelty here, i am from NY and there are tons of places with this concept. Also is a good idea because it appeals to the anime community and also to the fashionable community. Having said that... My two visits were bad and maybe i am comparing it to similar places in Manhattan, but here it goes.

Service: A friend suggested we should check out Kaiju and we made a reservation for 4 people. We arrived 10 minutes early and we had to wait 30 mins because the place was packed. They sat us down in a small round table at the entrance. We told the waitress that we could wait for a better table and she said they were reserved. That table should be eliminated, it was very uncomfortable. Even the rectangular table located besides the one we were is just not well located and uncomfortable based on the guys that sat there. It was crowded, small-short, in a dark corner and the chairs were bad. We felt like we were outcasts and i couldnt enjoy the atmosphere. The whole night we only saw people taking pictures near the TV and the waitress receiving people 2 feets away from us. We ordered sushi and drinks first, for 20 minutes we were asked 3 times if we wanted something else. When we finished our drinks we ordered another round and i felt they were pushing us to order more or get out. The waitress was nice but it felt strange. We ordered the main course and more drinks and she asked if we wanted the bill. We decided to go. If you have a place with hang out - bar lounge atmosphere you cant push people out, people go to drink and talk. Our bill was around $350 for 2 hours (including wait time). I dont mind the price but for the bad table we got and that we felt constantly pressured is a no go for me.

Last week we gave it another chance, my friend made the reservation and specified a zone. We wanted to sit in the gathering place at the center. when we got there they sat us at the "sushi bar" near the bathrooms facing a wall. I told the waitress and she told me you need to make a reservation for that. I told her i have a reservation and i specified the table. She said she was going to check. She came back and asked for our order, we had a drink and left.

Food: Food is good, not awesome. I recommend the ramen, the sushi is average. Had way better in NY and in PR for less. Nothing compares to what i had in Japan. Drinks are not that good, had 3 of them and all tasted quite common for me even too frutty.

TLDR - Nice place with nice music with a hang out lounge atmosphere but it works like a restaurant. They push you to order a lot in the shortest possible time. For the price and food is not worth it. Avoid the table at the door...

Absolutely horrifying. I went here thinking I was finally going to taste the awesome food this place seemed to have, but not only was it very salty and just that in terms of flavor, they refused to give me any sort of compensation in regards to the phone they covered in broth when I was there. The waiter accidentally spilled the ramen bowl and the broth landed all over my phone. It was completely damaged, didn’t work at all. From a completely functioning phone I went to not having one at all. While they apologized profusely, they offered to give us drinks for free and a discount for what had happened. We didn’t agree to this, yet they brought the drinks anyway. There was no manager inside the restaurant, though an assistant manager did tell us that we had consumed the drinks they had offered us though we never agreed to said drinks as compensation. I wanted compensation for a new phone, or the fix of the one they had damaged because after all, accident or not my phone wasn’t working at all. They wouldn’t give it. The assistant manager then told me that I understood it was an accident, right? I understood, but that didn’t mean I didn’t expect compensation for my phone, which once again, they had damaged completely. So now I’m writing this review, two weeks later almost, to say that thanks to this place my phone has never worked the same, and that I had to fix it with my own money. Which has added up to almost $200. Oh, and at the end of the whole ordeal at this place, the only thing they could do was give us a 20% discount? And pay for the ramen bowl that they had spilled all over my phone? Yeah no. The total anyway, with the discount was almost $100. Not worth your time, energy, nothing of the sort. Thank you for reading this far if you have, don’t come here....

I was so excited to celebrate a friend’s birthday here - this is why we left so dissatisfied:

We were not told when we made the reservation that they didn’t have dining space for a group our size. We paid $105 up front as a deposit and arrived to sit at 3 couches and eat on a low coffee table. We had to eat our ramen on our laps!! which was really uncomfortable; if we had been told when we called, we would have gone somewhere else.

Poor ventilation and fire hazards! I’m not even sure how this place is approved. The restaurant is in a basement speakeasy style, no windows, one main exit with two heavy doors. The bartenders were constantly burning Rosemary and other drinks which was overwhelming to smell and they had a fire performer who lit batons and did tricks throughout the night. The space is so small! Super unsafe given the space and the scent made it so I had to go outside and get air because the smell was making me and my boyfriend nauseous.

The DJ’s set was located right next to one of the couches. My pregnant friend had to get up at one point for the DJ to get to their equipment and the DJ reached over her multiple times while we were dining to fix the music.

Waiter and owner were attentive, staff was friendly but forgot a few things.

Food was good, but they didn’t bring out the main dishes out together and some plates took much longer to arrive. Our ramen arrived lukewarm.

I really wanted to like this place! But it was just really frustrating that they would book our group of 7 knowing they weren’t equipped to comfortable seat and serve a group our size. To ask for a $105 deposit and not say anything about the seating arrangements felt very frustrating and the rest of the positives of the place were harder to enjoy...