Ramen-Ya
“Most places that offer a non-pork broth only have 1 version of the dish and it's usually vegetarian.”
“if you have a bigger party and weren't able to get seated at the W4 location, then this is the place for you!”
“Their lunch sets are actually a great value and even if you aren't getting a lunch set, their food isn't bank breaking expensive.”
Ramen-Ya
Takes Reservations: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Has TV: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
PokéStop Nearby: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Located right next to the West 4th Street handball courts, Ramen-Ya is a quaint restaurant serving up some pretty darn good ramen. My first time here was about a year or two ago and it wasn't too memorable, but I had the opportunity to come here more recently and my inner foodie celebrated this time around.
What differs Ramen-Ya from other ramen restaurants is the donburi set menus, which offers mini bowls of curry over rice, beef over rice, braised pork or chicken over rice, and spicy cod roe with rice as "appetizers" before the ramen comes out. Let me tell you…I loved my beef over rice. The beef was perfectly marinated and tender. I honestly wish I had more beef because I had a lot of rice leftover. I also had a bit of my friend's braised pork, and OH. MY. GOD. Enough said. Even if you're not a pork lover, I'd still recommend that.
Another thing that sets Ramen-Ya apart is their options for broth. Not many places I know of offer both tonkotsu (pork) and paitan (chicken) broth. I opted for the spicy miso tonkotsu. Savory broth, check. Delicious chasu pork, check. Perfectly cooked ramen noodles, check. I couldn't finish the broth though because in the end it got too savory for me. I even attempted to dip some of the leftover rice from my beef bowl into the broth and after a couple of bites I couldn't do any more. Honestly, this would've been a 5-star review if I hadn't felt like I had to chug a gallon of water even a few hours after I finished my meal.
In any case, I will definitely be back to try the other donburi sets and maybe give the paitan broth a chance. Perhaps it won't be as salty the next time.
Constantly searching for a place that tops Totto for me, I decided to try this place for lunch today. At around 1:45PM on a Monday it was completely empty. I was told to pick any seat, but wanted to use the restroom first. The waitress seemed hesitant but let me. Once I'd finished, I scoped out a seat near the entrance, since the back near the bathroom was dark. The waitress then called me as if I was leaving and had only come to use the bathroom. They might get lots of people coming in only to use the bathroom but this was still a little off-putting.
Once I was seated, I was brought a glass of water without ice, which seemed a little odd (on top of it being a 90+ degree day) as places usually include ice but the water was still cold so it wasn't a big issue. Until the two people that came in after me were given ice water. Again, pretty off-putting. Once I finished about half of my glass, I asked for a refill with ice.
Now finally onto the food…
I went for the $15 lunch special:
Vegetable curry rice – Very good! I'm not really a fan of any curry aside from Thai curry but this was pretty good, basic delicious curry flavour.
Kojiru Spicy Shio Black – I am pleasantly surprised. Still prefer Totto's spicy paitan but this was good too. The spice wasn't overwhelming at all but those in search of a good kick should ask for more spice. Great for when I don't have time for the trek all the way up to Hell's Kitchen. The chicken was cooked and seasoned well. The noodles were thinner and not as firm as I like but still good.
All in all, I'd say this place is a decent option for ramen. But I've had better, and I've definitely had worse.
Love that this ramen ya is a bit bigger than the original west village location and the food is as good as always. Nice staff and the food comes out pretty quick. Get the original shio, you won't regret it.
Haters be hating! Ramen-Ya is great and has really good classic ramen. There is also a lunch deal with ramen + rice bowl. I haven't tried the appetizers, but the ramen is A+ (especially the Shio Black Tonkotsu Ramen!).
Pro Tip: The W 3rd St has more seating than the W 4th St location. I love how cozy the W 4th St location is but sometimes the wait time is insane, so I'd recommend going to the W 3rd St location (which is also large and can seat larger parties of 4+).
I am torn between a 4 or 5 star review. Since we returned to Ramen-Ya multiple times when we are in the neighborhood, just that reason alone pushed this review to 5-stars. I ordered the Musashi (Tonkotsu Pork Soup) Shio Black ($12) which comes with straight thin noodles in their original "Tonkotsu", berkshire pork, broth topped with chashu pork, kikurage mushrooms, nitamago (seasoned egg), scallions and black garlic oil.The broth is soooooo tasty. The pork broth was white, smooth, and soooo yummy. Next time I am going to order it with the thicker wavy ramen noodle.
My boyfriend made a comment to me after I finished my ramen soup…"Oh I never seen you finish the entire ramen including the broth." Which is true. I usually just eat the ramen and leave the broth for him to finish but at Ramen-Ya, I didn't even leave him a drop! I was sad when he made that comment. Maybe I should have saved him some more….next time! The Chasu pork is moist. The soup is hot at Ramen-Ya. You would think that should be a given but I have had problems with other ramen joints where they serve their ramen almost room temperature, yuck.
Ramen-Ya is my go-to ramen place in the West Village/Greenwich Village area. You can order a mini rice bowl (mini donburi) with your ramen for another $4 to $5, awesome. You can only order the mini donburi with a order of ramen. It's a set. Not that I can finish both a ramen and mini donburi but in case you're hungry!
I've ordered the Yaki-Ramen which is $12 and is only served at their West 3rd Street location. Yaki Ramen is pan fried wavy thick egg noodles with your choice of pork or chicken meat, cabbage, onion, bean sprouts, nitamago egg, red ginger pickles, bonito flakes, dusted with green dried seaweed and dressed with a sweetened, thickened sauce. Next time I would ask them to make it less greasy. I enjoyed it at first but the grease got to me. It was hard to finish because of the grease. Granted, it's stir fried.
My boyfriend had the Abura soba for $12. It's ramen with no soup, not sure why they call it soba because there is no soba in this dish. It's served with wavy thick ramen noodles, your choice of pork or chicken chashu, kikurage mushrooms, nitamago egg, corn, bean sprouts, scallions and a soy based sauce. I thought it was tasty.
We have tried both their mini curry donburi (rice bowl) and their mini chashu donburi with braised chicken $4 each. There is no meat in the curry bowl, but it's okay nonetheless. It's just rice, ginger and curry. While the braised chicken chashu donburi is YUMMO. I enjoyed it. I want to try the pork chashu donburi next time. The meat at Ramen-Ya is pretty yummy.
I would not hesitate to come back.
3.5 star for the noodles, 2 star for the veggie dumplings, so that rounds up to 3 star.
I haven't been to the actual restaurant, I ordered my food a few times on Caviar. I like the broth a lot – it's heavy but very fulfilling and delicious, toppings are also nice, noodles are on par with most ramen places you can find in the city, not better or worse. I am pretty sure the dumplings are pan fried from frozen dumplings, maybe I'm a little picky here, but I do want to get fresh made dumplings if I'm paying $9 per serving instead of frying some frozen dumplings at home… Overall not bad if you just go for noodles!
I had the tonkotsu miso ramen + mentai don lunch set, and it was easily the worst ramen – or come to think of it Japanese food in general – I've ever had in NYC. Ramen was way undercooked, the pork was mostly just fat, and the broth was oily. The Mentai don was even worse, loaded with too much mayo, and the mentaiko itself of horrible quality. I could only stomach a few bites of it. Service is nothing to write home about either, but the bad food is the real horror show here.
The fast food interior was forgiveable but the broth was disagreeably saline and the cash only structure, without any notice, was almost unforgivable.
The hurried asian staff provided swift service otherwise. The ramen was just decent without the broth, but with a saline intensity of urine I endured it only due to a post drinking session.
The broth was unforgivable.
If I hadn't been tipsy maybe I would've noticed the cash only signs, but a verbal warning from the staff or a post on the door is really necessary.
Citibank is making a killing on ATM withdrawals at the 7-11 next door.
The food offerings other than ramen looked decent, but the space, especially given the block full of rowdy bars, seems more of a post party pit stop.
A no frills spot that felt sweaty and not super clean.