Men Oh Ramen Restaurant Review

There are a lot of ramen places in the Bay Area, and everyone has their favorite. Most argue that the best ramen places aren't in San Francisco proper, but south of the city. I've tried quite a few of the ramen places in the city, and I've found Men Oh Tokushima Ramen to be my favorite bowl in San Francisco. Their Geary location is open 7 days a week and open late on the weekends, because who doesn't want a hot bowl of delicious ramen at 11PM on a Friday!

I always order a large Spicy Tonkotsu Ramen, medium spicy (not that I can't handle extra spicy, but I find it to be too overpowering and you can't taste some of the more subtle ramen flavors) sometimes with an extra seasoned boiled egg.

Their chashu pork is always tender and falls apart. The boiled eggs are hit or miss, sometimes they're perfect, other times they're overcooked. But the ramen itself is always tasty, like I said not the best I've ever had, but it's the best if you're in the city itself, I think. They also have crushed garlic and sesame oil on the tables, so I usually add a little of that to my bowl as well.

I've also tried their Teppan Yakimeshi which is a crispy rice dish served in a hot pot. It's good, but I'd recommend just getting a large bowl of ramen. If you can finish that and not have to loosen your pants, you're a champ!

The service is always great, the only downside being they usually only have one server, and while the place is fairly small, it can get pretty busy for one server to handle. You usually don't have to wait for long. The other upside to this place is that unlike some of the more popular south bay ramen places, there is never a line! No writing your name on a piece of paper and waiting for an hour! You come in, sit wherever you'd like, and you're usually eating ramen within 15 minutes.

The restaurant itself is kind of out of the way, there is a bus you can take all the way out there (the 38 line Muni bus will take you all the way down Geary St.) but depending on where you are in the city it can take an hour or more to get there. I recommend driving, there's a parking lot about a block away that's not expensive, or sometimes you can get lucky and find street parking. They are metered spots though. I always know I'm there by when the street parking goes from parallel to the sidewalk, to at an angle. As soon as you see that change, it's right there.

Located at: 5120 Geary Blvd., San Francisco, CA 94118