Little noodle spokane — Restaurant in Spokane

I keep making the mistake of calling this restaurant and trying to order takeout from their seemingly sensible and easy to navigate menu. Each time I have called there (3 times) has been one issue or another why they can't make something on the particular day I'm calling. Not that the entree doesn't exist on their menu but that they didn't bring in enough ingredients needed for it. In fact it was last year's Restaurant Week pending several weeks into the future where I was told that because they are preparing 5 weeks in advance of Restaurant Week they just don't have enough ingredients to make a Ramen dish they advertise. I recognize this reply from the previous time I called for their Ramen dish and something fundamental was missing like bone broth or something. Last evening at almost 8:55 p.m., (and they are open till 10:00 p.m.), I get Erin on the phone and explain to her that the website for Little Noodle brings up some foreign advertising in German and then nothing that resembles the menu at all. Just more German words. And then I very reluctantly ask if she could help me with what kind of ramen bowls they have so i can place an order since I wasn't able to look at the menu online. Immediately her response is that they have SO many Ramen bowls (implying that it would be quite an inconvenience at 8:55 p.m. for her to tell me what I didn't have access to online). I seem to remember the menu I had access to the last time I looked had only one or maybe two ramen bowls. I tried to appeal to her that this is the only way I'm able to place an order and so then she reluctantly was able to tell me they have pickled vegetables, an egg, if i liked, over noodles. That lack of variety fell a little flat after her statement that there are so many different Ramen bowls they have to begin to describe each of them. I asked her what's the most filling of the ramen noodles, something that is a heavier dish of the ramen bowls. She explained the pickle vegetables as the ingredient key to being the heaviest dish (?).. and then said "I don't know what you're looking for". I said I don't know either because I can't get a hold of a menu so I was hoping you could just give me a recommendation of something "hardy" or calorie dense. She asked "Give me a definition of hardy". I realize this is an absolute no win situation but I thought I would try. I attempted to explain "A hardy dish would also be pretty calorie-dense and first thing that comes to mind in a soup bowl would be maybe stew". To which her reply is, "Well we don't have ingredients like that. "I replied, "Erin, you just asked me for an example of the definition hardy. I'm not asking you for a bowl of stew". I just was trying to get you to envision what a lot of calories could look like". I asked if there were any other ingredients besides the egg noodles and pickled vegetables and eggs that they put on top and she said they have all kinds of protein to which I had to ask do you have chicken. She agreed. So then I created a bowl for her to make at which point she says "We stopped serving at 8:30 p.m". Yep. And even added, "You could come over to Little Buddha and have a small dish or a drink. I'm trying to help you, I don't want you to be disappointed". Which was about as disingenuous of a remark after doing the best she could in the absence of a menu to not allow me an understanding of a filling ramen dish they carry. And she could have started with, "if you're looking for food tonight we have actually stopped serving at 8:30". So I asked why they stay open until 10:00 if they're not going to offer the menu after 8:30 p.m. and the answer was "I don't know what happened with our website that you would be seeing german. I was hoping I could also interest you in a drink or something small at little buddha. I just don't want you to be disappointed". This reply,.. rather than answering why they are still open until 10 pm but not allowing any servings of the tidy sized menu that they offer. I should have said "Just be transparent in your answers and I'd be a lot less...

Don't waste your money here, trust the low reviews. Not a great first impression, honestly I should've just walked away without ordering. Most of the noodle shops in Spokane close at 9, so we decided to try out Little Noodle for the first time. As we walked up there were two bros loudly talking about something, not normally an issue, but it turns out these were the kitchen staff just hanging out. We stood around for about 7 mins looking at the menu (which looked promising) and checking the place out, but absolutely no one showed up to take orders and no one was in the kitchen at all. Eventually we got the attention of the bartender at the "Itty Bitty Buddha Bar" who graciously took our order. The kitchen bros eventually come back in, still intent on their conversation. We hear them throw excuses at the bartender about how it will take a while for the order, they immediately get on discussing some kind of car crash story. I wouldn't care, but I couldn't hear much of anything over their discussion. One highlight of their conversation was "floor food" which the apparent cook loudly proclaimed "[he] would never serve" (We are so fortunate 🙏). By sheer force of volume I gather that the kitchen had been shut down preemptively and that they need to "reopen" everything. We showed up at about 8:45p, every indication online states that they close at 11p. Apparently the door has the pleasantly vague statement "12-Close", change the time online if you don't want to stay open. We ordered to-go and didn't have high hopes, but damn was the food unappealing. We got home after a 10 min drive and the to-go boxes were essentially melting in my hands as I walked inside. Upon opening them I was greeted by what looked like a school lunch impersonation of a noodle dish. The meat was dry and pale, the veggies looked particularly troubling, and the broth was leaking and coated the bag it was in. If you're reading this much, then we should have just walked away and you should too. Part of me wants the rant on and on, but simply put, don't waste your time/money here. I'm now standing in my kitchen debating whether or not I should eat this or just see if the local wildlife wants to give it a go. Good way to waste money. Decided to give it a go and put it in bowls, this just looks like wet spaghetti with slivers of subpar meat and tastes exactly like it looks. -10/10, giving this to wildlife would be animal cruelty....

My girlfriend and I came for a Sunday afternoon lunch hoping to get some ramen and left feeling like we had just experienced one of the worst meals of our lives. I don’t usually leave reviews but the quality of the food plus the price we paid for said quality was genuinely ridiculous. It was pretty much inedible and neither of us finished our food and we both left feeling deeply unsatisfied (and that’s putting it nicely). The low reviews are right on this one.

First off the quality, I had ordered the Tonkotsu ramen + pork belly and my girlfriend ordered their miso ramen + mushrooms. Immediately as we were waiting for our food there was a sneaking suspicion that the sole employee working at the time was microwaving our food, we were able to hear the distinct sound of microwave buttons being pressed coming from the kitchen (it was also just the two of us in the restaurant at the time). Our suspicions were confirmed when the food came out and our ramen was lukewarm at best. Not only that, but it was clear that they didn’t cook any of our veggies. They were all raw. The worst was my girlfriend’s mushrooms, big chunks of just raw mushroom that couldn’t even get cooked a little more by the lukewarm soup. The pork belly I had ordered was serviceable but it tasted like some leftover dinner I had heated up for myself the following day, stale and a little dry. In conclusion, cold soup, raw vegetables, and nothing was freshly cooked. It felt like one of those meals straight out of Kitchen Nightmares.

Secondly, the price point. In this day and age, the prices aren’t unreasonable for decent bowl of ramen. 16$ + 5$ for a protein, fine. But, for this type of money, at the very least I’d expect my soup to be hot. Portions were also on the smaller side. Definitely not worth the price.

After some reflection, perhaps there’s some discrepancy between dinner and lunch service. It seems like the focus of the restaurant is on the bar and the dinner service where I’m assuming they’d at least cook their food then. Just speculation but it may just be the leftovers from yesternight being reheated up and served as the next day’s lunch. At least that’s what it tastes like. That’s still no excuse for the quality, and as for my experience here for lunch, it was rock bottom, I would not recommend.

(Note to the owner: on your menu, tonkotsu ramen is not spelled tonkatsu, that’s an entirely...