My first great ramen experience in the city! I love the upscale decor in the back of the restaurant. It sure did look fancy, but I sat at the bar which was fun too because I enjoy seeing what little that I could of the cooks making our food.
The waitress i had was Japanese and she was amazingly friendly. I didn't understand what other reviewers meant when they said staff were friendly but now i know. It was as if she were my friend. She smiled and laughed a lot. Customer service is HIGH on my list and I'm glad the staff gave a homey feeling. Other staff that I interacted with also smiled and were pleasant to interact with.
Okay onto the food. I started off with the mimiga, which is pork/pig ear. I personally LOVE pig ear. I've only had them at Taiwanese places so it was interesting to try at a Japanese place. It comes with a spicy sauce coated over it or a peanut miso sauce. We got ours with peanut miso. It was a lot softer than I usually eat it. It is cartilage after all and I'm used to the stiffer feel. However I enjoyed this new texture and it was YUM! The pig ear comes on a bed of shredded red onion topped with the sauce you choose and sprinkled with some crushed black sesame and i think crush dried seaweed.
As for ramen I got the tonkotsu ramen. The noodles are the thin straight flour noodles. I usually prefer mine a little thicker but this did not disappoint! I got mine "soft" and oooo was it ever so delicious! The noodle portions are generous. The wood ear mushroom (if you eat it alone) has a very mild spicy kick. You can't tell if you eat it with the ramen. I LOVED IT! The meat was tender, juicy and fatty. uhhm, yum? The only thing keeping this from being 5 stars is the broth. It has a great pork flavor but it also has way too much sodium! Go easy on the salt and this will be perfect.
Last but not least and probably not important but I just wanted to mention they cut my seaweed in the shape of a heart. They didn't do that for my date so maybe this is only for women on Valentine's day? I thought it was super cuuteeee!