Tonkotsu ramen was delicious the broth was very rich &flavorful & hit the spot.As a woman who grew up in Japan until 18 it’s good to know I can get a realistic & near authentic tasting bowl of ramen right here in Bellingham
Tasia A.
Super cute family owned restaurant. They've got amazing ramen, but I personally would really recommend getting their katsu curry or their curry ramen. Staff is always friendly and accommodating. I also like to stop in to get boba tea, they are the only boba place located in downtown bellingham!
Amaya R.
This place is really good! I will always recommend the ramen they offer and if you are not a fan of spicy you can get it on the side! The staff are extremely friendly and accommodating. I will say I would always call in and check if they're open before going. Twice now we've attempted to go during hours the website gives and they're either closed or having a staff lunch during the hours it's supposed to be open to the public. Besides that it's a great food spot.
Vince Mulcahy
We got the seaweed salad, grilled octopus, sashimi combo and a ramen bowl. All was ok and none was great. The seaweed salad was the best tasting but half of the dish was a cabbage mix. Seriously small portion of actual seaweed salad. The octopus was cooked ok but charred sugar in some spots made for quite a bit of bitterness. Ramen was decent - a little heavy on salt. Sashimi was not real fresh, except for the salmon which was great.
Monica Brown
This location is awful. Manager is sad. Served us gelatinous gooey gyoza and he didn't blink, like that's how they are meant to look. Ordered 2 tonkotsu ramen, 1 spicy. Recieved a completely different ramen and they took my ramen back into the kitchen and switched the noodles into the right broth... I'm not joking.Do yourself a favor, go to the Lynnwood location, that place is amazing. Not sure why they're slacking so bad in Bellingham.
Michael Carnahan
Very poor overall experience. Our party of 2 spent 2 hours in there waiting at our table only to end up with some cold, flavorless ramen. The service was poor, took forever despite not being all that busy and just didn’t even end up being worth the wait after all of that.Even got to a watch a party of 5 come in and have their food served within 15 minutes just before we were leaving.
Noah B.
This place was okay. Taro milk tea was good but the boba was soft and tasted like water. Tonkatsu ramen was also okay. You get one piece of chashu, one single thing of seaweed. Their prices are insane, it's $5 for a side of green onion... chicken kaarage was good. Service was good but I probably won't be returning. I think a menu revamp and some price adjustments would make this place a lot more appealing.
Sigrid Williams
This place has really gone down hill since the pandemic. The waitress seating people yelled across the restaurant instead of coming to the door to greet and seat people. We ordered appetizers and entrees which came out sporadically and in no particular order. The glass i was served plum wine in was dirty (had waxy grease marks on one side). They forgot to bring the miso soup that came with what I ordered and when I asked for it they have seemed to have moved to a very bland pre-made miso with a few pieces of tofu in it. I ordered a spicy chicken karage bowel which was missing the pickled garlic and sesame seeds. The only flavor in the dish was the chicken, which was great, but it was just dumped on white rice and cut up romaine lettuce....Basically it was a very disappointing experience to what we had pre-pandemic. I also have a suspicion that they had pre-made sushi rolls in the back and other food not cooked to order based on timing from the order to the kitchen to the table.Not worth the prices as they obviously just don't care anymore!
Kennedy Greer
I had a much better experience last timeSunday 3/27 us and the people next to us both had our food come out at very different times. It was a good 15 minutes before my partner got his sushi roll and the group of people next to us were all done with their food before their friend got his dinner. I've worked in many kitchens and the food should be timed to come out together plus it'll help with the table turnaround so people aren't waiting for the other person who just got their food to finish.Also my egg was stone cold and would be very cool if the dried fish flakes were garnished on top of everything else, ours were buried and we didn't get to see em move with the heat :/
Lael B.
Ugh! It pains me to write this review because Muto used to be one of my favorite spots in Bellingham. In the last year or so the quality has been inconsistent and with the return to dine in the service has also lacked (it always kinda lacked but I think it somehow got worse). On our most recent trip to muto: -didn't receive water or much service at all for ~15 mins. Finally, one of the workers came up to us, confused, asking if we needed water. -ordered a "spicy" tuna roll and the server brought it to us and it was very clearly not spicy. He even called it a spicy tuna roll when it was clearly missing the spicy part! It was just a normal tuna roll. This has also happened multiple times when I've gotten it for takeout. -we ordered two drinks and they never arrived. We just kept waiting because muto is notoriously bad about timing and they bring things out at various times but they never came. And then they were on the bill -my tonkotsu ramen just tasted like saltwater. I've probably ordered this ramen 30 times and this has happened a handful of times. I know it doesn't taste like this so it's just odd that the flavor can be so lacking, almost like someone forgot all the seasonings or watered it down. -my partner asked for no bamboo shoots in his ramen and they left them in.... It was even noted on our final bill. Not a huge deal but kinda the icing on the cake for our experience. All of these are pretty minor issues which I usually wouldn't care too much about, but all of them happening at once and having had similar experiences in the past, I'm just over it!
Warning they have a policy where if they make the food incorrectly, they don't refund you. We got a ramen that had a cold meatball in it, the broth was warm but the meatball itself was refrigerator-level cold, clearly dropped into the broth right before being brought out to us. We brought it up to the server and she told us she would warm it up for us. However, when she came back we concluded she didn't do so. The meatball was still cold and the bowl itself wasn't warm at all so clearly it never went into the microwave. At this point, we are a bit upset and just wanted a new ramen so we ask our sever if we could get a completely different ramen instead. She tells us we can, but they wouldn't be able to refund us for the first one. We are obviously surprised by this policy, but we order a new one anyways because we are so hungry we just need to eat. She came back multiple times to make sure that was the one we wanted and reiterate that she wouldn't be able to refund us if we didn't like the new dish. Once this new ramen came out, the manager who brought out the food only said two words to us. "No change". We were clearly confused by that and he repeated himself "No change". Considering the fact that the server mentioned multiple times that we couldn't get a refund on it if we wanted to, we assumed that was what he meant. We explained that we still planned to pay for everything despite the first one being such a health safety issue. He turned to leave and we were shocked by the lack of understanding and terrible reaction the manager had to our completely fair request. We are beyond frustrated and disgusted by the service so we ask for a To-go container, pay for the food, and leave. Awful service, we had considered talking to the manager, but when we meant him we changed our minds. We realized we weren't going to get anywhere with him anyway. Needless to say we wouldn't recommend.
Boo R.
I just wish delivery was an option. I appreciate the quality for an Izakaya in this area.
Janice K.
Terrible service and terrible food to match. Ordered online and told it would be about an hour. I got there on time but had to wait another 45 min! They were very short staffed and were visibly disgruntled. Food was awful: ramen was bland and watery Chicken teriyaki was burnt and rubbery Calif rolls were very sloppily done. And they forgot the dessert. They said they would refund me, I'll have to check that. If the meal was any indicator, I probably dodged a bullet by not getting dessert! If I could give zero stars I would.
Andy nguyen
Flavors were not the best, everything was a bit bland. Here is what my wife and I orded and how it was.Gyoza: definitely needed some more ginger, salt and pepper. The sauce it came with it kinda saved it.Chicken ramen with a spice level of 3: wasnt spicy at all, needed more flavoringCurry ramen, spice level 3: very bland, the noodlea were over cooked, and alsonwasnt spicy at all.Dragon roll: it was pretty good, kinda over priced for a basic roll.Bubble milk tea: good, cant really complainIce grean tea: most disappointing thing i had. Straight from the can and unsweetened. I feel like they could have at least had fresh tea and put it in a pot like a pho shop would. At the very least put the tea in the cup already and dont tell me its from the can.Final price was $62.80+$5 tip. I went with a 7% tip and not 15% because one of the sauce tray they gave us was dirty and it was a bit unsettling.Overall the server and cashier there was very nice, just unfortunate that the food was lack luster. Wont come back unfortunately.
Victoria Byers
Beware citizens of California State!The food was anticlimactic, and the service was not bad. Unfortunately, they declined to serve me alcohol due to running my California ID through a machine that may show “something off” and “not seeing many California licenses come through.” When I asked what looked odd, their response was they have to “go with their gut feeling.” Being 25 and not being served alcohol due to “gut feelings” was pretty disappointing. I have never been to a restaurant that runs IDs through a machine let alone declines to serve alcohol due to intuition. After scanning the room, there were two other couples my age drinking sake and beer. I worked a 50 hour week and went out for food and wine to decompress on a Friday night and was bitterly disappointed. I could not have frequented any other restaurant in the area because every other business closes at 9pm in this off-brand Seattle hippie town that reminded me why I left. I went home to my saved bottle of sake that I purchased… with my California ID.
Tonkotsu ramen was delicious the broth was very rich &flavorful & hit the spot.As a woman who grew up in Japan until 18 it’s good to know I can get a realistic & near authentic tasting bowl of ramen right here in Bellingham
Super cute family owned restaurant. They've got amazing ramen, but I personally would really recommend getting their katsu curry or their curry ramen. Staff is always friendly and accommodating. I also like to stop in to get boba tea, they are the only boba place located in downtown bellingham!
This place is really good! I will always recommend the ramen they offer and if you are not a fan of spicy you can get it on the side! The staff are extremely friendly and accommodating. I will say I would always call in and check if they're open before going. Twice now we've attempted to go during hours the website gives and they're either closed or having a staff lunch during the hours it's supposed to be open to the public. Besides that it's a great food spot.
We got the seaweed salad, grilled octopus, sashimi combo and a ramen bowl. All was ok and none was great. The seaweed salad was the best tasting but half of the dish was a cabbage mix. Seriously small portion of actual seaweed salad. The octopus was cooked ok but charred sugar in some spots made for quite a bit of bitterness. Ramen was decent - a little heavy on salt. Sashimi was not real fresh, except for the salmon which was great.
This location is awful. Manager is sad. Served us gelatinous gooey gyoza and he didn't blink, like that's how they are meant to look. Ordered 2 tonkotsu ramen, 1 spicy. Recieved a completely different ramen and they took my ramen back into the kitchen and switched the noodles into the right broth... I'm not joking.Do yourself a favor, go to the Lynnwood location, that place is amazing. Not sure why they're slacking so bad in Bellingham.
Very poor overall experience. Our party of 2 spent 2 hours in there waiting at our table only to end up with some cold, flavorless ramen. The service was poor, took forever despite not being all that busy and just didn’t even end up being worth the wait after all of that.Even got to a watch a party of 5 come in and have their food served within 15 minutes just before we were leaving.
This place was okay. Taro milk tea was good but the boba was soft and tasted like water. Tonkatsu ramen was also okay. You get one piece of chashu, one single thing of seaweed. Their prices are insane, it's $5 for a side of green onion... chicken kaarage was good. Service was good but I probably won't be returning. I think a menu revamp and some price adjustments would make this place a lot more appealing.
This place has really gone down hill since the pandemic. The waitress seating people yelled across the restaurant instead of coming to the door to greet and seat people. We ordered appetizers and entrees which came out sporadically and in no particular order. The glass i was served plum wine in was dirty (had waxy grease marks on one side). They forgot to bring the miso soup that came with what I ordered and when I asked for it they have seemed to have moved to a very bland pre-made miso with a few pieces of tofu in it. I ordered a spicy chicken karage bowel which was missing the pickled garlic and sesame seeds. The only flavor in the dish was the chicken, which was great, but it was just dumped on white rice and cut up romaine lettuce....Basically it was a very disappointing experience to what we had pre-pandemic. I also have a suspicion that they had pre-made sushi rolls in the back and other food not cooked to order based on timing from the order to the kitchen to the table.Not worth the prices as they obviously just don't care anymore!
I had a much better experience last timeSunday 3/27 us and the people next to us both had our food come out at very different times. It was a good 15 minutes before my partner got his sushi roll and the group of people next to us were all done with their food before their friend got his dinner. I've worked in many kitchens and the food should be timed to come out together plus it'll help with the table turnaround so people aren't waiting for the other person who just got their food to finish.Also my egg was stone cold and would be very cool if the dried fish flakes were garnished on top of everything else, ours were buried and we didn't get to see em move with the heat :/
Ugh! It pains me to write this review because Muto used to be one of my favorite spots in Bellingham. In the last year or so the quality has been inconsistent and with the return to dine in the service has also lacked (it always kinda lacked but I think it somehow got worse). On our most recent trip to muto: -didn't receive water or much service at all for ~15 mins. Finally, one of the workers came up to us, confused, asking if we needed water. -ordered a "spicy" tuna roll and the server brought it to us and it was very clearly not spicy. He even called it a spicy tuna roll when it was clearly missing the spicy part! It was just a normal tuna roll. This has also happened multiple times when I've gotten it for takeout. -we ordered two drinks and they never arrived. We just kept waiting because muto is notoriously bad about timing and they bring things out at various times but they never came. And then they were on the bill -my tonkotsu ramen just tasted like saltwater. I've probably ordered this ramen 30 times and this has happened a handful of times. I know it doesn't taste like this so it's just odd that the flavor can be so lacking, almost like someone forgot all the seasonings or watered it down. -my partner asked for no bamboo shoots in his ramen and they left them in.... It was even noted on our final bill. Not a huge deal but kinda the icing on the cake for our experience. All of these are pretty minor issues which I usually wouldn't care too much about, but all of them happening at once and having had similar experiences in the past, I'm just over it!
Restaurantji Recommends
Warning they have a policy where if they make the food incorrectly, they don't refund you. We got a ramen that had a cold meatball in it, the broth was warm but the meatball itself was refrigerator-level cold, clearly dropped into the broth right before being brought out to us. We brought it up to the server and she told us she would warm it up for us. However, when she came back we concluded she didn't do so. The meatball was still cold and the bowl itself wasn't warm at all so clearly it never went into the microwave. At this point, we are a bit upset and just wanted a new ramen so we ask our sever if we could get a completely different ramen instead. She tells us we can, but they wouldn't be able to refund us for the first one. We are obviously surprised by this policy, but we order a new one anyways because we are so hungry we just need to eat. She came back multiple times to make sure that was the one we wanted and reiterate that she wouldn't be able to refund us if we didn't like the new dish. Once this new ramen came out, the manager who brought out the food only said two words to us. "No change". We were clearly confused by that and he repeated himself "No change". Considering the fact that the server mentioned multiple times that we couldn't get a refund on it if we wanted to, we assumed that was what he meant. We explained that we still planned to pay for everything despite the first one being such a health safety issue. He turned to leave and we were shocked by the lack of understanding and terrible reaction the manager had to our completely fair request. We are beyond frustrated and disgusted by the service so we ask for a To-go container, pay for the food, and leave. Awful service, we had considered talking to the manager, but when we meant him we changed our minds. We realized we weren't going to get anywhere with him anyway. Needless to say we wouldn't recommend.
I just wish delivery was an option. I appreciate the quality for an Izakaya in this area.
Terrible service and terrible food to match. Ordered online and told it would be about an hour. I got there on time but had to wait another 45 min! They were very short staffed and were visibly disgruntled. Food was awful: ramen was bland and watery Chicken teriyaki was burnt and rubbery Calif rolls were very sloppily done. And they forgot the dessert. They said they would refund me, I'll have to check that. If the meal was any indicator, I probably dodged a bullet by not getting dessert! If I could give zero stars I would.
Flavors were not the best, everything was a bit bland. Here is what my wife and I orded and how it was.Gyoza: definitely needed some more ginger, salt and pepper. The sauce it came with it kinda saved it.Chicken ramen with a spice level of 3: wasnt spicy at all, needed more flavoringCurry ramen, spice level 3: very bland, the noodlea were over cooked, and alsonwasnt spicy at all.Dragon roll: it was pretty good, kinda over priced for a basic roll.Bubble milk tea: good, cant really complainIce grean tea: most disappointing thing i had. Straight from the can and unsweetened. I feel like they could have at least had fresh tea and put it in a pot like a pho shop would. At the very least put the tea in the cup already and dont tell me its from the can.Final price was $62.80+$5 tip. I went with a 7% tip and not 15% because one of the sauce tray they gave us was dirty and it was a bit unsettling.Overall the server and cashier there was very nice, just unfortunate that the food was lack luster. Wont come back unfortunately.
Beware citizens of California State!The food was anticlimactic, and the service was not bad. Unfortunately, they declined to serve me alcohol due to running my California ID through a machine that may show “something off” and “not seeing many California licenses come through.” When I asked what looked odd, their response was they have to “go with their gut feeling.” Being 25 and not being served alcohol due to “gut feelings” was pretty disappointing. I have never been to a restaurant that runs IDs through a machine let alone declines to serve alcohol due to intuition. After scanning the room, there were two other couples my age drinking sake and beer. I worked a 50 hour week and went out for food and wine to decompress on a Friday night and was bitterly disappointed. I could not have frequented any other restaurant in the area because every other business closes at 9pm in this off-brand Seattle hippie town that reminded me why I left. I went home to my saved bottle of sake that I purchased… with my California ID.