ramen rating: ryowa – berkeley, ca

Just went to Ryowa in Berkeley and I must say it was probably the worst ramen I have ever had.

Let’s start with the service. It was cheerful and the waiter honestly seemed to be trying his best, but he just wasn’t very good. The ramen took an unusual amount of time to make. What should have been a relatively quick meal took two hours and some change. It wasn’t a crowded evening, yet the staff could not seem to keep up.

On to the ramen. I had the sesame base and my friend had the miso. The sesame soup base was almost blank, no flavor. What flavor came through was that of old oil strained through a musty cloth. There was no balance. The miso was much better but still worse then an msg pack in a Cup O’Noodles. The pork in both was gross. Imagine that you took perfectly good pork, fed it to a sheep, and then ate the mutton. It was a very washed out porky/gamey flavor. There was no kelp, but they did stick a bit of nori to the side of the bowl. Terrible presentation, violated every rule of enjoying ramen as recorded by the movie “Tampopo”.

I do recommend the veggie gyoza and the chef’s singing. I don’t recommend the food, service, or watching your food get prepared by a large man with his entire right arm covered in a bandage. I’ll give them a second chance when they get a better recipe and find a way to control the amount of sweating going on over the soup.