| rev:text
| - I was meaning to write a review about this but I was out for the Labour Day weekend.
So I went on a Thursday night and it's a rather small place in comparison to all the other places on Baldwin. Truth be told, the two patio umbrellas are rather large and they block the front of the house, so to the owners, you may want to position the tables differently or find some way to present yourself!
Going inside, it's a really small place that seats no more than 30 people but the design is nice and the white walls really brighten up the atmosphere. It's a quaint little place that offers up for the most part a formidable ramen that is comparable to the many places open.
An unique selling point that Ryu's has with their ramen is the whole aspect of picking an oil to add into the ramen broth once you've consumed half of your ramen dish. My friends and I all got different ones ranging from truffle (I got that one: an extra charge $0.25) to garlic shallot to ginger. It's an interesting concept and certainly segregate themselves from all the other places like Kinton, Kenzo and Ajisen (and whatever other ramen places) there are.
As for the ramen itself, I got the shoyu ramen and I have to say that on its own, it tastes really good. I'm always so afraid that the broth would be too salty, which is sometimes what I experience when I'm eating pho or a beef noodle soup, but the saltiness/flavour was damn near perfect. Better off, the taste of the broth had certain flavour notes in it so it wasn't a straight on salty broth. There was a proper complexity to the actual broth. Really good. As for the noodles, my friend addressed that they were too soft and I kindly disagree with her. I thought the noodles had the desired al dente bite that I expect in any noodle. The little garnishes like the fungus and pork shoulder was very good, not dry and very flavourful. When I added the oil, and maybe I put too much in it, but I honestly didn't think that it improved the taste. While the server was correct that it will taste a lot different, I'm not exactly sure if it was necessarily better. I personally prefer it without anything. Also, the broth itself is already a bit on the oily side, so I feel like adding more in it just takes away from the flavour rather than improve it. I think if anything that's my only gripe with this place.
Service-wise, it's solid. There's a total of two servers and they're constantly moving around being quite attentive. When you come in, there's a welcoming Japanese greeting when you come in. Not only that, they understand the menu and are able to answer questions. I asked them about a supposed "self-serve pop" bar that you have access to when you purchase a combo and they answered that the bar hadn't been installed yet and that it was just a can of pop that we would be getting. I really like it when servers are knowledgable and can answer questions on the spot so brownie points to that.
This has nothing to do with service persay but I felt one thing I did notice about the menu was limitation and lack of choice when I was ordering. All I said to the waitress when ordering was shoyu ramen and felt that I almost wished that there were a bit more options like Kinton. Would you like the broth normal or light? Pork Belly or Pork Shoulder? Take the additional oil out of the equation and you don't exactly get a whole lot of options.
Overall, I think that this ramen place is doing a pretty good job, but I think there aspects that can be improved to make this place even better but they're heading in the right direction!
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