— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
I was walking by 22nd and Capp around 6 o'clock and noticed that there was a pop-up ramen restaurant in the normally abandoned Panchitas #3. By 6:30, there was a line out the door for Ken Ken Ramen's $11 bowl of soup. Seeing the line, I was totally pumped to check out what all these fools were standing in line for. At 7:15, I jumped in line with my roommates to get a taste of ramen that costs 44 times the price of Top Ramen. After 45 minutes of waiting patiently, tragedy struck: the WASPy individual who was set to serve me authy Japanese food walked out into the line to inform us that they were “out of food.”
Preteen girls who run lemonade stands are more apt to run a business than this dude. This individual, who I will not call a Rice Queen, was literally so clueless about how to run a business, he didn't have a waitlist for seating, he had no idea about how many people he could serve and he was under the delusion that “this is our first time” (the opened last Monday). Customers who waited 45 minutes in line were turned away with nary a condolence. To piss in our freshly opened wounds, they tweeted 45 minutes later to boast about their last two bowls served.
Cold, hungry, empty handed and miffed, we rolled to Cha-Ya, a restaurant that actually can serve people soup, for a delicious bowl of Udon:
Note: not Ken Ken.
Long story short, just ignore Ken Ken Ramen, just like they ignore their customers.
Comments (11)
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“If I could give this place 0 stars, I would.”
I put in 11 at the china joint today, out of food is most probably a lie, I am trying to convert them, your probably lucky.
Got in at 6:10 and got a seat at the bar just before the line started forming. Free starter was steamed edamame with a chili dressing - -very tasty. The ramen was decent, not great/special. Broth was lacking in flavor. It needs more stewing time with pork bones to build depth. And they need to season better - I was wanting some salt. Pork chashu was tender though very roughly chopped and also lacking in seasoning. Soft boiled egg was a very nice touch and done perfectly. Noodles had a good bite. Overall, I kept reaching for the togarashi red pepper to give it a kick and at $11/bowl, just doesn’t hold up to the better places around town and served up at Ferry Building.
Call me old fashioned, but unless that ramen has something like unicorn or some endangered animal in its broth, I’m not buying $11 cup o noodles with Alemeny Farmer’s Market veggies. I mean, bok choi is cheap over there!
He got a long ling of people stretching outside the restaurant, and he got you to publicize it. Sounds like a pretty good businessman to me.
Were you the unreasonably angry guy that stormed off like a child denied his toy?
I waited in line about 20 minutes beginning around 7pm, and I gotta say, it was worth the wait to find ramen of that quality in San Francisco, to say nothing about the Mission. The chashu (pork) alone was worth the wait.
I think it needs to be taken into consideration it’s a pop-up. They’re obviously not going to have an unlimited supply; in fact they were pretty upfront on their Twitter feed noting they would have something like 120 bowls or what not.
But with that said, maybe it’s helpful if they keep a running tally on a chalkboard outside.
I love your insane embellishment.
I knew full well that they had a limited supply, but given they had a line out the door soon after they opened, you think they could have had a waitlist at the door to have an idea about when to cutoff the line. But to keep a line of customers, while watching your supply quickly dwindle and not address the situation, is ridiculous. It was even more insulting that they waved their friends in the door after initially telling us they might not have enough food for the rest of the line. Given that, is it unreasonable to tell them that they should have a waitlist (via every other restaurant in the plant) and walk to another restaurant? (or in your words, “stormed off.”)
Poor baby didn’t get his noodles. This is a known risk with any of these kind of pop-up gigs, they don’t have the ability to commandeer the kitchen for the couple of days needed to prepare enough to handle all comers. Now perhaps the kitchen could have communicated with the front of house a little better to warn folks off before they ran out, but again this is I think the second time they’ve done this thing, so it’s understandable that they might not be quite the well oiled machine that an actual established restaurant might be.
As far as the whinging about $11 for a bowl of ramen, you can easily pay between $9 and $11 for good ramen over in Japantown. Good handmade noodles aren’t simple or cheap. And a great broth is a work of art requiring hours of prep and top quality (not cheap) ingredients.
Personally, I thought the Shoyu was on its way to being tasty but a bit too subtle and in need of further flavor development – again, the perils of not having the ability to cook several dozen gallons of pork stock for a day or two. However, I thought the Miso was very good, and the soaked egg was a tasty and excellent addition, as were the large stalks of pickled bamboo shoot (also not cheap). The chashu was outstanding, very tender with a great flavor.
Anybody who would compare this in any fashion to Top Ramen doesn’t know their ass from a bowl of reconstituted dehydrated ass.
The whole point of this exercise is to give the restaurateurs a sense of whether their creations can be popular enough to build a restaurant around. This is an experiment, an exercise, a test run with glitches expected. If you can’t go along with it, STFU and go back to McDonalds where your palate and sense of adventure will be undoubtedly more at home.
srsly? palate snobbery over ramen?
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