Ramen Parlor — Restaurant in San Mateo

Food was 4 stars. Service was 2 stars.

My party of 3 arrived on a Friday night around 7pm with about a 5 minute wait. Ramen Parlor has their own small parking lot. We were lucky that some folks were leaving and found front door parking.

This was my first time trying this place out after many have provided high praise for this restaurant. The lines were usually too long for me to wait during lunch time on weekends.

The food: I ordered the lobster garlic ramen with extra pork and soft boiled egg. It did not come with a soft boiled egg and it was lacking flavor. The broth was flavorful and the texture was what I expected it to be. This is a must try as many other ramen places don't have this exact flavored soup. The quail eggs and soft shell crab that was included was very good. Their prices are slightly above average. Nothing was extraordinary, but definitely worth the trip!

The service: We were seated promptly and served quickly. Shortly after ordering, I decided to order something to go for my wife. I asked the waiter to put in a order for me, he didn't understand what I needed. The waitress came by with the same expression on her face. The same waiter came back and asked if I needed something... um yeah, again- just wanted to order take out.. the Asian guy (appears to be the only person that understood English) from behind the counter near the front entrance came by and admonished me for not knowing that to go orders are made when initially ordering. However, he hesitantly took my order. There was no notice from the wait staff or signage stating that these takeaway orders must be taken all at once. I was a little surprised at the lack of customer service as a first time customer.

I probably won't be coming back because of the service and there are places with better ramen (and prices) or just as...

I don't want to write this review since my wife said that the business now are hurting from COVID. But I think if I spent $40+ for 2 bowls of ramen and a small dish of pot sticker, and still hungry enough to order some more food from another restaurant, I think I should write about this bad experience, since I think I just had my worst bowl of ramen here. I got the house special ramen, my wife got the classic ramen. And when asked how spicy I wanted it, I said medium, then the server said please say on a scale of 1-3 (I heard 1-5, my bad, but no other place give a scale of 1-3), so I said 3 thinking it is medium spicy as I said before. But I was served extra spicy. Then when I said it is too spicy and the server simply added more soup to my bowl (better, but still pretty spicy) then the soup itself is so water down, not much rich garlic pork flavor that a good bowl of ramen should have, and there are a lot of spices to make the flavor you can tell (a good pork garlic soup usually cook with pork and garlic for a long time to get the rich garlic pork flavor out), but this soup feels like soup from packaged spices. in terms of ingridents in the ramen bowl, there just a small amount of ramen not enough to fill wife up (even she has just a small appetite), and one thin slice of pork, a few slices of black mushrooms, a sheet of dried seaweed and a half egg. But no corn, no bamboo shoots or other garnishment that typically make a good classic ramen bowl. and the pork itself was not marinated, and just very bland and flavorless by itself. Feel like it was simply boiled in hot water, and served in a soup of spices. After the meal, my wife and I had to order a dish from another restaurant...

Over priced for a bowl of bland noodles! They specialize in "the LACK of customer service." Worst experience ever! This place is definitely just hyped for no good reason. Will never return.

My husband and I paid our bill, left and we were around the corner already. the asian guy( the host) had the nerve to run after us and shouted " the tip is not included." I was confused and he repeated himself a couple more times. Then I realized he was talking about the tip we did not leave (I seldomly give zero tip) but my experience here deserved a zero tip. He then asked me "did we do something wrong," which I explained but he walked away while I was telling him my issue with my visit. Like dude if you gonna run after me and ask me why I gave a zero tip, then you should at least listen to what I have to say. That is why I gave you a zero tip in the first place. No customer service from the beginning to the end.

*This is just the ending to my experience here. I didn't feel like writing everything.

If you wanna be ignored and pay for just a bowl of water (their ramen)...