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| - It's a hip restaurant with ambient lighting, seats at the ramen bar, communal seating in the center, or booths along the edges. Seats around 50 max, and not great for big groups (like 6 or more).
The ramen was good, very flavorful and rich broth. I got the jinya tonkotsu black, and it's a pork and chicken broth that wasn't too oily like some ramen broths can get. The only complaint I had was that I got a ton of noodles but not enough broth. Also, the char siu pork wasn't as fatty as I'd like, and it was cut into thin flat strips (I like thicker cuts). It did fall apart easily though, showing it was slow cooked for a long time. The whole egg was perfectly cooked (soft yolk inside but not runny).
My party got the fried shrimp balls which were the absolute best I've ever had!! The fried crust had just a touch of sweetness (tasted like cane sugar?) & nuts, the shrimp paste inside was a mix of minced shrimp and chopped shrimp, so there were larger pieces of shrimp in there. there was also some of the spicy mayonnaise dipping sauce in the shrimp ball too, making it super moist and delicious.
We also got the tempura Brussels sprouts which was a miss. Had a touch of black truffle oil & salt, but it didn't come with the typical tempura dipping sauce which I like. I didn't like the taste of black truffle oil with the Brussels sprouts. truffle oil already has an almost bitter, savory taste and Brussels sprouts do too, so it was a bit too much for me.
Four stars was mainly because the music was too loud! The bass was pounding away and I had to semi shout to chat with the others I was eating with. It was so annoying that we were in and out in 35 minutes, and didn't really get to sit and savor everything.
Service was friendly. The women's bathroom was super high tech Japanese. flushing the toilet takes some time because I had to figure out how to flush it. You flush it by pressing a tiny round button on the side of the bowl. I don't like touching toilets (I usually flush by pressing my foot down on the flushing handle), so this was gross for me. But I appreciated the super high tech toilet, just too bad it's not in my home for me to personally enjoy (tmi!)
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