This place sucked. That’s the best way for me to sum up my experience here. This location was recently converted from a popular Italian restaurant to a ramen shop. According to the guys that were sitting next to us, the Italian restaurant was always busy and they couldn’t understand the change over. While we were eating our ramen, the guys next to us asked how it was. I recommended they not waste their time and walk to another place. I had to be honest. Based on the bowl of ramen my wife and I got during their soft opening week, I think their days as a ramen shop are numbered. And, they’ve only been open for a week or so.
What made it so bad? Let’s go through it.
The decor…They are still doing the Italian theme, as evidenced by the bottles of wine all over the walls.
The noodles…Even on the first bite, they were really mushy. Like they were over cooked. Or, I think they are just using their left over pasta noodles and trying to pass them off as ramen noodles… That doesn’t work.
The broth… The tonkotsu had ZERO flavor. That’s an incredible feat, considering tonkotsu is pork broth. How can you deliver pork broth with so little flavor? The beef soy sauce taste like they just heated up a bowl of soy sauce trying to pass it off as a version of shoyu. Both bowls came out luke warm.
The toppings… they come out on their own plate, cold. So you add the cold toppings to the broth when it comes out so that it makes the broth even colder.
The chashu pork… I think they just shredded some quickly cooked pork trying to pass it off. Lame guys, just f’ing lame.
They charge… $14/$15 for this nonsense. Luckily, I went there during the soft opening and used the $5 coupon so I only wasted $10 this evening.
Who ever is cooking this slop clearly lacks the love AND passion to be putting out good ramen. There is no love in these bowls. Outside of Japan, LA/OC has the strongest ramen scene and I don’t believe this place will last long. Why go here when, right down the street there is Venice Ramen, Jinya, Silverlake, and Ippudo (soon in Santa Monica). Not to mention all the other delicious choices on Sawtelle Blvd, on Melrose Ave, Culver City, Downtown, or in Torrance….Just to name a few areas….
Located @ 5 Dudley Ave, Venice California
On the web @ http://www.landmarksrg.com/ or http://ramengovenice.com/ not currently working.
I could tell just from looking at their menu that they’ve set the bar low on their ramen. These look like really weak bowls of ramen..
