Kasai - Syracuse

Kasai has the worst ramen our family has ever had. My dish tasted like American barbecue soup and contained squash, and the broth that accompanied the ground beef bowl was shockingly bland. We saw reviews that claimed the broth was bland but I would not have anticipated it being this bad. We threw out most of our dishes because no one in our family wanted to finish them. Pork buns were ok.

So this was a truly amazing experience, and to be lucky enough to have it in Syracuse, NY. This place is a gem; I ordered the shoyu ramen lunch special with a pork bun, and batch 39 by middle ages. So first off this ramen and everything else is hand made. The ramen had amazing flavor, and the meat was literally able to split by touching it with your chop sticks. The veggies inside were so fresh, and they paired so well with everything my only regret is I didn't get the big bowl. I also had the pork steam bun; which even though they had ghost sauce on them they weren't so hot you couldn't enjoy it. In fact it was the opposite it was amazing. To have steam buns in Syracuse, NY is such an amazing privilege. Usually this type of menu item is reserved for big cities, but we got lucky. The batch 39 IPA was smooth and refreshing and made with the hand made noodles from the shop. So why not it's the perfect pairing for your noodles. Long and short we're very lucky to have this good of a ramen shop, so let's show em some love.

Went down for a nice parent date night and had a good time. Local music was nice, we had ramin, spicy food was a bit overkill on the spiciness, you couldn 't really taste the food, just burning, the fried octopus balls were a nice treat and the pickled Kim chi potatoes were the star of the night. And the wall art was dope too. If you plan on going, avoid the spicy ramin unless you like ingredients like cobra venom or hell fire

I've eaten here three times. The food is good enough, but my third visit was an event...The third time, I ordered the diablo bowl, and my partner ordered Shio Ramen substituting the pork for shredded chicken. There was a mixup with those two bowls. The four people at our table all confirmed the mistake after my partner ate some of their bowl.My diablo bowl (red broth) was not spicy. Their shio bowl (yellow broth) had all of the spice. We compared both bowls to a second shio bowl served at our table to confirm.This caused my partner immense pain and startled a medical condition they have, forcing them to lose their voice for the rest of the night, but the kitchen blamed the server for the mistake, not the kitchen.Through a series of emails with the owner, the error was explained as being the server's (though, the server blamed the kitchen and drew us to his side of that argument—occuring during our dining experience). Iam still not quite convinced of it, as the color oddity of the spice in the yellow broth bowl (not the other yellow broth shio bowl, or the red broth bowl) didn't seem to match the three bowl discrepancy that my table observed. It doesn't really matter where the mistake happened, but it was handled badly when it happened. If it was the cooks and not the server, I'm upset about the blame being passed to a new staff member. If it was the server, I'm upset for being dragged into an argument about it.The food was replaced, but the dining experience was ruined that night. The owner in their emails explained that compensation was offered in the form of free drinks, but also told me that my table had refused them. Noone at my table heard such an offer, nor would we have refused the offer if it was explained as compensation for the ramen mishap. If it did happen, it was misrepresented as a question if we just wanted to buy more drinks, not explained as a comp offer.The mixup with the ramen (whether it was the server or the kitchen) and with the bartender left me with a long-enduring sense of unprofessional mistakes—hopefully rare ones, and a one-off case of bad luck. Maybe it was all a fluke, and I'm editing this after time enough to feel less hurt by it all, but it still was a very bad night.I understand that it was an honest mistake:But with the kind of medical scare that the diablo mixup caused, we were understandably quite unhappy.P.S. — There was no music the first two times I ate here, which suited me. The third time, there was a band playing some jazzy music. I was trying to ignore them and focus on my company, but it was disruptively loud in the small brick restaurant space.Vegetarian options: The menu is annoyingly a QR code. The staff will give you a paper menu if you ask for one, but only one menu for the whole table, and there is no drink menu to hand out.When I attended, neither the menus nor the staff offer substitution suggestions for proteins or other items when an order asks that something be removed for dietary reasons. We did ask after a point. In truth, the meals are more customizable is obvious, so without making that known, the menu will put off a lot of people who do not eat meat.Dietary restrictions: The menu is QR code, which is annoying. The staff will give you a paper menu if you ask for one, but only one menu for the whole table, and there is no drink menu to hand out.When I attended, neither the menus nor the staff offer substitution suggestions for proteins or other items when an order asks that something be removed for dietary reasons. We did ask after a point. In truth, the meals are more customizable is obvious, so without making that known, the menu will put off a lot of people who do not eat shellfish or meat.

We enjoyed the food and the atmosphere was great. Service was very slow. Overall very unimpressed with the waitresses. We had to ask for our drinks to be refilled. Kitchen was slow getting food out even though the restaurant wasn’t very busy at the start of our dinner.