Otaku is by far the best place in nashville to eat ramen; after living in Korea for a year and coming back to the states finding ramen that was just as good with the same quality is hard to find! This place is the place to go! I love eating here and enjoying the atmosphere. I've been to multiple locations and have had an amazing experience and quality of food at each location.
I travel for work and am in a new city every week. One of my favorite things is trying a bowl of ramen at each new stop. Unfortunately, Okatu Ramen missed the mark for me. I ordered the tonkotsu shoyu and found it very oily and overly salty, so much so that it was unpleasant and heavy to eat. I was only able to finish 1/4 of my bowl. I wanted pork belly instead of pork sausage, but I regretted that because the pork belly was primarily fat. I tried the hot chicken bun, which was really good, however.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 2
Service: 4
Recommended dishes: Hot Chicken Bun
Kassandra Solsrud
Otaku Ramen is a cozy Japanese-style ramen house on Charlotte Ave. I ordered the tonkotsu ramen. It was okay. I thought that the broth could have a more developed flavor. The noodles were delicious. We also ordered the chicken gyoza and the edeme. The add-ons: the garlic butter was a slight miss as it was a brick of butter with dried garlic. The chili crisp was very well done. I liked it. The atmosphere was cozy and the service was warm and friendly. They also had kirin ichinban beer
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 3
Service: 4
Recommended dishes: Chicken Gyoza
Cra Azzs
Ordered online the Thursday of the 8" snow storm. When I went to pick the food up, the sign said OPEN when they were not. Why wouldn't you take your ordering platform down if you were closing early. It wasn't about the safety of your employees as Charlotte was clear and Black Dynasty Secret Ramen House was open for business.
Service: 1
Jonny Price
Need a phone that works.
Mickey
The best ramen in town, had never been here before but they blow the competition out of the water. Miso is the way to go!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Spicy Miso
Diane Deberry
This place is addictive. Their dishes are consistent every time. The best in Nashville thus far.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Szechuan Miso, Spicy Miso
Sayali Sheth
Very subpar.
Riya Chinni
I normally eat at the Gulch Otaku location but placed an order for delivery through the Otaku website. I am a vegetarian and received chicken in my bowl that was delivered, and the boba I ordered was missing from the order. Basically, the entire order was wrong/missing. I reached out to customer service when this happened 3 weeks ago and was promised a refund within 24 hours. It has been 3 weeks and I have yet to receive a refund and have not been able to contact customer support since then, despite trying to multiple times via text, phone, and email. I used to love the food at this restaurant and their vegetarian options, but this recent experience was so disheartening and disappointing as someone who used to love Otaku. Please do better for your customers.Vegetarian options: Eating in person vegetarian is fine- don’t order delivery if you are vegetarian as you may receive meat in your order.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
Daniel T.
I dined at Otaku Ramen on Sunday, February 18, 2024 at 2 pm. I've been to the other Otaku Ramen location about 2 years ago and recalled a much more positive experience. This location was more of a fast casual environment where you order at the register and sit down instead of sit down and have someone come to your table to take your order. I didn't mind this, but thought it was worth noting. The service was friendly and the food came out in reasonable time, as the establishment had only one other diner at the time I was there. I had the spicy miso ramen and it was one of the worst ramen bowls I've had because of its imbalanced flavors and super oily broth. I'm not sure if it's just an inconsistency in quality with this location or the standards have gone down since I last had Otaku. The soup had the perfect spice level for my taste, but it just tasted flat and one-dimensional like a normal homemade ramen. A good ramen broth should be prepared over several hours so you can taste the broth's flavor developing. But this broth tasted like it was made at home after boiling water with some quick seasoning. Also just looking at the bowl, there was a thick layer of oil at the top, which is not desirable in a good bowl of ramen, let alone any soup for that matter. Spicy ramen doesn't have to be oily for it to be spicy. Some oil is okay, but this was way too much. Lastly, I feel like the marinated egg should be standard for every ramen bowl, which I had to order extra. Overall, it's definitely overpriced for the quality I got. I left disappointed and will be looking elsewhere for a good ramen bowl.
Came here on Valentine's Day 2024 to pick up Raman soup as a treat from my entire family who was sick. Had a big order with a generous tip but when I got to the restaurant they looked at me like I was crazy and told me oh, we already sent that out. They do not check who comes and grabs the bags. They just let any order go out with anyone, and then forced me and my family to wait while they remade our order in the midst of a bunch of other orders. I ended up getting my order. 30 minutes later than was scheduled got harm later to a family that was already sick and all in all had a miserable Valentine's Day - thank you Otaku!
C C
Cute little building great decor. Maybe controversial, but I personally love a small menu, to me it says that a lot of care has been put into crafting each dish, and its going to executed perfectly every time. I had the pork shoyu something with pork belly, and can't recommend it enough. The guy running the counter made some great recommendations, one of the chefs even came out and we talked sake for a second. Very cool place. This one's on me, but if I had been thinking would have asked for the spicy bomb flavor addition, but since I'll definitely be back, just something to remember for next time. Thanks again guys!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Spicy Miso
Lisa Lynn Hatcher
Great food. Pleasant experience. We shall
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Zach Gooch
Great food, lovely atmosphere, I would definitely go back and try more of the menu.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Alissa M.
Food was delicious! Loved the miso and the teriyaki fried chicken. The taro milk tea was a little grainy but still had good taste.
Otaku is by far the best place in nashville to eat ramen; after living in Korea for a year and coming back to the states finding ramen that was just as good with the same quality is hard to find! This place is the place to go! I love eating here and enjoying the atmosphere. I've been to multiple locations and have had an amazing experience and quality of food at each location.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Triple Garlic Ramen, Szechuan Miso, Hot Chicken Bun, Miso Ramen
I travel for work and am in a new city every week. One of my favorite things is trying a bowl of ramen at each new stop. Unfortunately, Okatu Ramen missed the mark for me. I ordered the tonkotsu shoyu and found it very oily and overly salty, so much so that it was unpleasant and heavy to eat. I was only able to finish 1/4 of my bowl. I wanted pork belly instead of pork sausage, but I regretted that because the pork belly was primarily fat. I tried the hot chicken bun, which was really good, however.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 2
Service: 4
Recommended dishes: Hot Chicken Bun
Otaku Ramen is a cozy Japanese-style ramen house on Charlotte Ave. I ordered the tonkotsu ramen. It was okay. I thought that the broth could have a more developed flavor. The noodles were delicious. We also ordered the chicken gyoza and the edeme. The add-ons: the garlic butter was a slight miss as it was a brick of butter with dried garlic. The chili crisp was very well done. I liked it. The atmosphere was cozy and the service was warm and friendly. They also had kirin ichinban beer
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 3
Service: 4
Recommended dishes: Chicken Gyoza
Ordered online the Thursday of the 8" snow storm. When I went to pick the food up, the sign said OPEN when they were not. Why wouldn't you take your ordering platform down if you were closing early. It wasn't about the safety of your employees as Charlotte was clear and Black Dynasty Secret Ramen House was open for business.
Service: 1
Need a phone that works.
The best ramen in town, had never been here before but they blow the competition out of the water. Miso is the way to go!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Spicy Miso
This place is addictive. Their dishes are consistent every time. The best in Nashville thus far.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Szechuan Miso, Spicy Miso
Very subpar.
I normally eat at the Gulch Otaku location but placed an order for delivery through the Otaku website. I am a vegetarian and received chicken in my bowl that was delivered, and the boba I ordered was missing from the order. Basically, the entire order was wrong/missing. I reached out to customer service when this happened 3 weeks ago and was promised a refund within 24 hours. It has been 3 weeks and I have yet to receive a refund and have not been able to contact customer support since then, despite trying to multiple times via text, phone, and email. I used to love the food at this restaurant and their vegetarian options, but this recent experience was so disheartening and disappointing as someone who used to love Otaku. Please do better for your customers.Vegetarian options: Eating in person vegetarian is fine- don’t order delivery if you are vegetarian as you may receive meat in your order.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
I dined at Otaku Ramen on Sunday, February 18, 2024 at 2 pm. I've been to the other Otaku Ramen location about 2 years ago and recalled a much more positive experience. This location was more of a fast casual environment where you order at the register and sit down instead of sit down and have someone come to your table to take your order. I didn't mind this, but thought it was worth noting. The service was friendly and the food came out in reasonable time, as the establishment had only one other diner at the time I was there. I had the spicy miso ramen and it was one of the worst ramen bowls I've had because of its imbalanced flavors and super oily broth. I'm not sure if it's just an inconsistency in quality with this location or the standards have gone down since I last had Otaku. The soup had the perfect spice level for my taste, but it just tasted flat and one-dimensional like a normal homemade ramen. A good ramen broth should be prepared over several hours so you can taste the broth's flavor developing. But this broth tasted like it was made at home after boiling water with some quick seasoning. Also just looking at the bowl, there was a thick layer of oil at the top, which is not desirable in a good bowl of ramen, let alone any soup for that matter. Spicy ramen doesn't have to be oily for it to be spicy. Some oil is okay, but this was way too much. Lastly, I feel like the marinated egg should be standard for every ramen bowl, which I had to order extra. Overall, it's definitely overpriced for the quality I got. I left disappointed and will be looking elsewhere for a good ramen bowl.
Restaurantji Recommends
Came here on Valentine's Day 2024 to pick up Raman soup as a treat from my entire family who was sick. Had a big order with a generous tip but when I got to the restaurant they looked at me like I was crazy and told me oh, we already sent that out. They do not check who comes and grabs the bags. They just let any order go out with anyone, and then forced me and my family to wait while they remade our order in the midst of a bunch of other orders. I ended up getting my order. 30 minutes later than was scheduled got harm later to a family that was already sick and all in all had a miserable Valentine's Day - thank you Otaku!
Cute little building great decor. Maybe controversial, but I personally love a small menu, to me it says that a lot of care has been put into crafting each dish, and its going to executed perfectly every time. I had the pork shoyu something with pork belly, and can't recommend it enough. The guy running the counter made some great recommendations, one of the chefs even came out and we talked sake for a second. Very cool place. This one's on me, but if I had been thinking would have asked for the spicy bomb flavor addition, but since I'll definitely be back, just something to remember for next time. Thanks again guys!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Spicy Miso
Great food. Pleasant experience. We shall
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Great food, lovely atmosphere, I would definitely go back and try more of the menu.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Food was delicious! Loved the miso and the teriyaki fried chicken. The taro milk tea was a little grainy but still had good taste.