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| - The ramen scene is starting to grow in Arizona (still nowhere close to California) and this was posed to me as one of the best in the state, which may have led to my inflated expectations. We ordered the Nishikawa Black ramen, a chashu donburi, and a tonkotsu ramen. Both ramen bowls were good and filling, but the Nishikawa Black didn't appear to have any additional taste over the tonkotsu - in fact, I preferred the regular tonkotsu over the Nishikawa Black. Looking at the menu, the broth of all the bowls don't appear to be that different, which makes me think that they're using only one or two broth bases in the kitchen and adjusting slightly for each variation. The toppings were of good quality, and I enjoyed the big slices of chashu in each bowl. The curly noodles are definitely more satisfying to chew on and grab hold of the soup better, so I would recommend getting those substituted in to any bowl that you have. The chashu donburi was good, but lacking flavor - it didn't appear to have a lot of sauce on it, and that lack of sauce contributed to the lack of flavor in the rice as well. The chashu looked like the same slice that's used in the ramen, which is fine, but it should be chopped/cubed for the rice bowl.
Service was quick and pleasant. I heard and read that service was pretty slow, but that wasn't the case when we went - perhaps it's been fixed. I give it 3.5 stars, rounded down because it didn't leave an impression on me.
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