REVIEW: At Ramen KenJo, fast service doesn’t equate to quality


Ramen KenJo is the first ramen eatery to open at USC Village. (Maansi Manchanda | Daily Trojan)

Ramen KenJo, USC Village’s debut Japanese eatery, was packed over Trojan Family Weekend, with a 20-minute wait time just an hour after its soft opening on Friday. However, USC students who have been eagerly anticipating the addition of a ramen shop to USC Village might find themselves disappointed by Ramen KenJo’s fast-food style noodles priced at restaurant rates.

Customers can start off by ordering pan-fried gyoza, boiled edamame or karaage, Japanese fried chicken, as appetizers for upward of $4. Chicken, cha-siu or tuna donburi are the only rice dishes currently available.

Its menu offers two types of ramen: the KenJo Ramen and KenJo Ultra Ramen. The KenJo Ramen line provides all the basic ramen ingredients, with tonkotsu, shio chicken and spicy miso. There is pork broth, and chicken broth with a vegetarian option “coming soon.” Customers can add toppings such as kimchi, bean sprouts and nori sheets at an additional cost.

The KenJo Ultra Ramen series includes extra toppings such as corn, bamboo chutes and spam. The Shadow Maker, a pork broth-based soup comes with cha-siu pork belly, roasted black garlic oil, corn and red ginger.

Its flavor is underwhelming, with a single piece of nori drowning in the broth and barely any bean sprouts. The pork broth is unextraordinary, and less seasoned than customers may be used to. It has the same greasy consistency as most ramen soup bases, but less of the flavor. Moreover, the noodles were overcooked, with the consistency of instant ramen — but cost $11.50.

The tonkotsu ramen is one of the most popular items at Ramen KenJo. At $9.50, it’s a simpler version of the Shadow Maker with just the cha-siu pork belly and red ginger. Another popular dish is the Meat Up, from the Ultra Ramen series, which has cha-siu pork belly, kurobota sausage, slow cooked chicken, corn and red ginger for $12.50.

The Ronin, is a broth-less ramen dish with spicy miso and bamboo shoots, seems intriguing at first but turns out to be a disappointing mouthful of spicy, overcooked noodles.

All dishes are served in paper bowls, and customers must get their own utensils. The space is not big enough to seat all the customers, but outdoor seating is available at USC Village Piazza.

Ramen KenJo has a lot to improve on in order to be a major competitor Ebaes, a popular ramen and Japanese cuisine destination near campus. While the portion sizes are decent, the quality of the food isn’t worth the price. Students are better off going to Ebaes on the first day of every month for its $5 ramen deals.

Of course, Ramen KenJo has just opened and is still hiring, so customer service will likely improve in the coming weeks. But for now, customers may still be inconvenienced by workers asking them to stand up for them to get more napkins from the benches, which double as storage bins.

As of Friday, Ramen KenJo’s grand opening date has not been determined, but for now the soft opening hours are from 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.