Im only reviewing on the ramen. I usually do not like ramen and complain even if i get a decent bowl of ramen. I thought biwa was okay, but this place rocks. Have the tokyo ramen. I also had beef and pork katsu , and id give that 3 stars considering how the taste matches the price. Just get tokyo ramen read more

I can't name many places that I like taking groups of people to more than Yataimura. If your goal is consuming a pile of fried goodies that you can't get just anywhere (The takoyaki is essential) followed up by ramen and sake, it really can't be beat. Environment is super fun, there's clearly a lot of effort put into making Yataimura come across as a Japanese (pretend Japanese is italicized for emphasis) restaurant. I usually am not overly into the family-style ordering that is a staple of Portland restaurants, but with Yataimura it works out very well, especially if you're with a larger group. Whenever something new is brought to your table it feels like a fun treat. However, it's not infrequent for Yataimura to be sold out of some of their more popular items, which can be a damper on a dinner. There are one or two menu items I have -never- been able to successfully order, and some staple items (namely, karaage) are sold out far too frequently. Keep in mind that their menu can be kind of a minefield of disappointment in this way, it's all too easy to get your heart overly set on a particular thing only to find out that it isn't actually an option. read more

So many yummy-sounding options on the menu it was hard to pick! But I came in the with intention to satisfy my ramen craving, so I went with their luckiest ramen (I forget the actual name, but it has 7 toppings and they advertised it as their luckiest lol) It had a thicker broth that probably had a ton of butter in it, but it was delicious! The noodles were not the instant ramen curly-q kind I was expecting/ like, but they were expertly cooked and I had no complaints. Good amount of toppings for what you're paying for, and by the end I was stuffed. Needed something sweet to balance out the salty, so I got the black sesame mochi ice cream and I thought their presentation was real cute. Good food, nice service, and funny seeing/hearing white boys yell Japanese phrases every once in a while lol. Got to find time to come back and try their sushi and/or happy hour menu. read more

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Think 4 1/2 stars is our experience, but I like to round up. Walked in for lunch today, love that Division is usually great at lunch when dinner is nuts. We went simple. Steamed gyoza were very good. Wife loved her spicy tuna roll and miso (I tasted both and lived). I had Philadelphia roll and some ramen...loved both as well. Typical Japanese style, comes out as ready which didn't make us butt hurt like some other reviewers. Service was very attentive and nice. We look forward to exploring their menu very soon. I highly recommend. read more

One of the best happy hours in town, and among the top sushi places in the region. Must gets: Hamachi - consistently some of the tastiest around. I don't know where they get it, but it is buttery smooth tasting. Always. Pork Belly Skewers - can it get any better then this? Yes, ask for the spicy (and yes, it IS spicy!) thai chili sauce to take an good experience to a fantastic one. Slightly salty, cooked over an open grill so the fat is just starting to get crispy. I could eat these all day. House made kimchi - Even better then many of the Korean places around town. They need to jar that stuff up and sell it in grocery stores. Their sake and sochou selection is small, but very excellent, and priced extremely good. The Jinro sochou is only $5/glass, but is worth double that anywhere else. I'm a huge fan of the G50, also reasonably priced. I honestly don't think there is a bad item on the menu. And now that I live closer, they have become one of my go to places! read more

Haven't even tried the food yet. We got seated and it took 20 minutes for someone to take our order. Never coming back, no matter how the food taste. UPDATE: Asked the server how big a large is. Server- a large?! Food took 30 mins. Nice read more

Tokyo ramen was okay. I'm not a huge fan of the straight noodle myself but the broth itself wasn't anything special. It definitely was nice on a cold day. Pork belly skewer was good, but you can't really mess up pork belly. Chicken karaage is my jam and this place has some decent karaage. The service staff were amazing and very attentive. Would come back for happy hour? read more

I'm still in search of a decent ramen in Portland and have yet to find one. It seems that there are plethora of ramen places with rave reviews by hipsters who never had good ramen and I'm afraid that this is one of them. I ordered Sapporo corn butter shio ramen. Any authentic japanese will be puzzled by this. Anyone from Hokkaido will be disgusted by hearing that name. Sapporo ramen is synonymous with miso ramen as opposed to Hakodate style which is shio. So Sapporo shio is a bizarre naming indeed. On top of that, anyone in Sapporo knows that corn butter ramen is for tourists. This is not a good start. I give broth and noodle ok points. It's a simple shio broth which is decent, but then butter in there completely ruins it. For a very heavy miso ramen, butter goes ok although it screams tourist from "naichi", but let's face it, $12 for this confusing ramen with skimpy chashu and half boiled egg is criminally overpriced. This should be no more than $7.50. Absolutely poor value, mediocre at best ramen, there will be no repeat for me. Anyone who is raving about this quality ramen is sadly and blissfully ignorant about the ramen culture. read more

For the food was ok, but for satisfaction was not ok. I went there twice with my friends lunch and dinner on difference days just for Takoyaki, but there no luck for me. Lunch, they don't do it, only for dinner. When I went for dinner they were sold out, then I ordered Hot and Sour Ramen and other plates, so they don't do Hot and Sour Ramen also, they do it only lunch time!. ( how lucky!) I work in restaurant business for more than 10+ years and mostly customer's satisfaction is very important. Things can be modify for customers. I do anything as they asked just to make them happy!! They have all ingredients to make the ramen I wanted to have. But they don't want to do it. I'm kind of disappointed for the service restaurant offered to customers. :( read more

Pros: great happy hour food: $1.50 skewers, $5 ramen & $3.5 microbrews. quality. awesome private cubby booths. neatly decorated -- not terribly yuppy, but still classy. extremely nice waitstaff. Cons: super small portion sizes. should have ordered more before the kitchen closed. was hungry still. read more

This place had so many great reviews, but I was pretty disappointed after leaving here. I came here pretty early in the day (I get off work at 4PM, so it was probably around that time). I was quickly seated at the bar where I could see into the kitchen area. I waited for a long while before a waiter ever came to take my order (I would say maybe 5 - 10 minutes) with only two tables occupied behind me and one couple way off to the right. The gentleman at the table behind me actually got up to find a waiter to take his order (he was sitting with two impatient young children). After their order was taken the server turned his attention to me, realizing I had been there a while and had not been helped either. Finally got my order in, had a beer to make sure I received the happy hour pricing. I got the Lovers poke, tuna & avocado handroll, salmon & avocado handroll, and chicken karage. The handrolls were tasty, the chicken karage also good - though would have been better to have it come with a side of rice. I wasn't too keen on the lovers poke - the sauce that was used wasn't my favorite and the fish tasted kind of bland / old - though this wasn't the case in the handrolls. After I finished those I waited quite a long while before the server came back to me. I wasn't quite full after those (since the lovers poke was a bust) so I decided to order a pork belly skewer and spicy scallop roll. My food came out quicker this time, but I couldn't help but notice that one of the cooks in the kitchen area was drinking a beer while cooking, and the kitchen looked pretty disorganized (taking a long time to get people's orders processed). This definitely didn't give me a good feeling about the quality and service of the restaurant. My server never came back to check on me after I finished the rest of my meal - it had been a good 5 - 10 minutes again with the restaurant still not being that busy. I ended up flagging down a different server so that I could pay for my meal and leave. I was probably in the restaurant for about an hour and a half and didn't get a good impression of this place. read more

Disclaimer: this is the third time we have been here always hoping it would get better. We went there last Saturday night and the amazing thing is that we nearly walked out to go across the street to Authentic Thai because of the visible disarray of the waiting staff. Unfortunately we did not follow our instincts. Instead we spent $60 for two on really average to below average Japanese food. The best thing may have been a few of the skewers but he service was horrendous. We will never be back. read more

I like their huge menu of traditional Japanese appetizers. They have so many I'm tempted to go everyday to try more. My fav dishes include the salmon belly, salmon collar and the aburamen. All are very delicious and perfectly made. I wouldn't come here for ramen. Having traveled to japan it's not on par with the ramen there. The broth is a bit too salty and lacks flavor. Plus it's a bit on the pricey side than other ramen places in town. I'm here for the appetizer and other dishes. Some are miss and some are hit. Just the nature of a branch of Shigezo. Lots of dishes some are great and some are not. Place is nicely decorated with a very traditional izakaya feel. Servers were attentive and knowledgable about the menu. Nice place to hang out with friends and family. read more

Two words: Happy Hour. We went here on a Sunday to try out their happy hour after reading all the reviews and boy did they not disappoint. We started with the bacon wrapped quail eggs - So good! Then we had the Chicken Karaage, which I'll admit had me craving a second order. The handrolls were also plentiful and pretty darn good - Spicy Tuny and the Tuna Crunch. All in all, we found ourselves happily full for less than $30 for two. We'll be back. read more

This was going to be a one star review, but the food (once you finally receive it) is quite good. I've long been a fan of Maru...until recently. The food is still good, but only if you don't mind waiting forty-five minutes or more to get it. Lately, when I go to Maru, it seems like they are understaffed. It takes a good long while to have our order taken and then even longer for us to get our food. Worse yet, items are forgotten and some ordered items never make their way to the table. It is nearly impossible to get refills on drinks and it is difficult to get the bill and pay the tab within a reasonable amount of time. Even when the restaurant only has a few tables occupied (or half full on my most recent visit), the staff is whizzing around busily. Maru is simply understaffed and it has, unfortunately, forced me to scratch this once favorite restaurant off of my list. I will take my business elsewhere. read more

No. I feel like the service staff was hired straight from high school, but maybe I hold Shigezo to such a high standard from their base restaurant in downtown that I expected more from this location. Granted the food was good, but it was unfortunate that some of the items I had hoped to try were not available. However, I felt this should have been brought to our attention when we got our menus. The lack of attention our service staff had was highly visible as we had to flag our server a few times for their assistance. There needs to be more training, especially with the menu and how to attend to their customers. I do believe that the owner/manager is trying as I think he was on the floor observing himself and even refilled our teas when we were running low on hot water. (Service staff did not ask once if we needed more water, etc.) They've just opened, so we'll give it a shot when they've worked their kinks out. read more

We went on Sunday afternoon around 4 p.m. looking for early dinner.... However, the server informed us that we could only order from "Happy-Hour" menu - the food item from dinner menu could not possibly be ordered until 5 p.m. - that's too bad. Understandably, the happy-hour menu item's price looks cheap and the portion reflects the price. All of our foods came in very small portion but they all tasted very good. I ordered Avo-Unagi roll and Gyu-Don. The roll was fresh. Gyu-don (rice-bowl with tendered beef) was perfectly cooked and delicious. My friends ordered Chicken Wing, Spicy Tuna Cut Roll, Tokyo Ramen and Shio Abu Ramen. We all satisfied with the taste of the foods but we were half-full. We ended up having a home-cooked dinner afterward. All in all, the food's taste and quality is on par with downtown Shigezo but I might go in at the wrong timing. However, since I am enjoying Singezo downtown so I don't think I will go back there anytime soon. read more

Probably one my new favorite places. Delicious as well as awesome happy hour deals. I had the $5 Tokyo ramen and I can't even imagine having a regular one because it filled me up! read more

Yataimura Maru - Tokyo ramen - Sushi Bars Near Me - Portland, Oregon

Why did I come here for dinner? Seriously, the sushi bar and the grill should really synchronize. I got a Kumamoto ramen to go for my sick husband and the noodles were put in a paper to go container so a bunch of paper bits were stuck on the noodles. Boo. Again, they're new and still working out the kinks but they should really fix a bunch of their stuff. Once they fix it, great. Never going back for dinner. I said that before but I mean it now. Lunch only. read more

Service was so friendly and inviting, I got seated right away while I waited for my friends. We got the sapporo butter corn ramen (had a shallot onion flavor, really good!), Tokyo ramen (more flavorful of a broth, also very delicious), bacon wrapped quail eggs (because why not, they was so yummy! But hot haha), jellyfish ponzu(excellent starter), okonomiyaki (awesome beer drinking dish), and spicy fried chicken that kind of had a curry taste to it. I wasn't disappointed with anything that I got, everything was seasoned well and came out really fast! Definitely going back read more

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Closest feel to a real izakaya outside Japan, from service yelling greetings and goodbyes to decor. Strongly recommend the shio abu ramen - a dish I've never tried anywhere else that is well executed here. Friendly service and reasonable pricing forgive any faults and give this place a five star rating. read more

Fantastic . When you walk into the door you are greeted in the most welcoming way . The food is very delicious and there's a little something for everyone . The look of the place is just charming a great place to pull you into the feel of what they are going for from big to the little details. A great place for any and all . read more

YUMZ. Let me break it down for ya. FOOD: -So I can't recall the actual name of the Ramen I got, but it was chicken and was the first listed on the menu. And it was FANTASTIC. The broth was super good and the noodles were on point. -Chicken katsu curry. This was also super flavorful, perfect portion. -We also got a sushi roll, but it kind of took a bit longer to get it, so I was already full by the time it arrived... BEER: Selection changes up here and there, but there's always a good variety. STAFF: Everyone is super nice, friendly, attentive. OVERALL: Treat yourself to some good ramen and chase it down with a cold one. And hit the drum twice for good luck! read more

We went here on a late wednesday night. Staff was friendly and very helpful. We had bacon wrapped quails eggs....YUM! We also had the Kumamoto Ramen, Miso Ramen and Tokyo Ramen. The Tokyo Ramen was by far the best. Creamy goodness. And a bit different than the typical ramen I'm used to. But it is the one I would go back for. The other two were good but we have our favs. great now I'm making myself hungry... The atmosphere was fun and low key..... Everyone really liked the food and there were no complaints. read more

The best ramen ever in Portland. Loved the chicken paitan ramen!!! We went their on Wednesday night, the service was good and I like the authentic Japanese izakaya atmosphere. It's just so hard to find a decent ramen restaurant in Portland but this place is so far the best ramen in Portland from a Japanese perspective. Try chicken paitan ramen! read more

Yataimura Maru - Chicken paitan ramen! Loved the half boiled egg!!! Delicioso!!! - Sushi Bars Near Me - Portland, Oregon

Came here for Happy hour and it met my expectations. I had the Spicy Calamari and the Hot Fried Tofu. Both were perfect. I had one of their ramen dishes. I forgot which one cause it was forgettable. When I have a noodle dish, dont you think every bite should have you like "Wow"? BUT I am excited to come back to try their Hot and Spicy Udon and Sushi at night. I will be a repeat customer. read more

Yataimura Maru - Spicy Calamari, Fried Tofu and one of their Ramen dishes. - Sushi Bars Near Me - Portland, Oregon

Such an amazing meal!!!! But the stars are for the server Keith. He was above and beyond excellent. He gave pointers on what to order and gave me ideas for recipes with the amazing sauce they create and sell. You can feel his passion for food. I loved it being foodcentric myself. He was the absolute best. I'll def be back again. Best spot so far in my hood read more

All my orders got jumbled and a little extra fishy broth was pretty buck. Hamachi was metallic. Tuna looked like insulation. Wasn't the worst but definitely relying on the other 37 reasonable and delicious sushi/ramen places. Might have gone on a day where training was going down. Hair nets would put me at ease. Place could use a scrub. read more

One of my favorite places to go for small plates and sharing with friends. Service is excellent and so is the quality of the meals. Happy hour is always fun here. read more

Incredible. The Frenchy Roll is my new favourite obsession! Super awesome atmosphere, great service, and amazing food. Do yourself a favour and get yourself to Yataimura Maru! read more

Truly wonderful meal here in late July with very food-obsessed guests from out of town. The food is excellent, the staff is friendly and super polite (without being intrusive), and the setting is nice. We had some standards, like tempura (crispy, airy batter and very sweet shrimp) but also had some items I've never seen anywhere--like okonomiyake, which looks like a pizza but totally is not a pizza--and is totally delicious. Also loved the salmon dish. The only meh--out of ten dishes--was the grilled eggplant--but the eggplant dish was cheap, and it was exactly as advertised. Everything else rocked, and we had to fight the out of towners to get our fair share of the yum. Sake was really, really good--apparantly something that is not available elsewhere. Added note: one of the out of towners is in her 80s. She needed extra explanations and needed other assistance at times. The young waiter was genuinely polite and attentive to our guest, without the slightest hint of irritation (despite being slammed) or attitude. She felt like royalty, and I suspect she kept dropping her napkin just to bask in his attention! Will definitely return to Yataimura Maru--especially since the staff offered to help us plan our upcoming trip to Japan. read more

Love that atmosphere here. We sat at the bar, the cook kept handing us the food for our neighbor. It was fine, he was really nice, we had a laugh about it. The sake was tasty, the food was filling, the service was friendly. We had onigiri, sushi, and then ramen, the whole meal was delicious. read more

A few months ago, a friend and I were in Portland for the weekend and were craving sushi for lunch. This place was close by, open at 11:30am, and very reasonably priced. The food was actually really good, although ticket times seemed a little off. The main reason for the 3-star review is that my friend ordered a particular sushi roll because of the ingredients listed on the menu. She asked for it without sesame seeds. It came about 30 mins later, even though the place was essentially empty. It had sesame seeds. It did not have nori, which, according to the menu, it should have. My friend gave it back to our server and asked for it to be re-made without sesame seeds and with nori. Seriously, another 30 minutes later, it was brought back without sesame seeds...and also without nori. My friend really wanted her nori and asked what was up. The server told us that they had recently updated their menu and my friend had accidentally received an old copy, which the server referred to as "defective." On the new menu, apparently this particular roll is not supposed to come with nori. However, while other dishes DID still contain nori (so clearly they had it), we were told that the sushi chef refused to make this particular roll with it, regardless of how the roll was described on the menu they were handing out. My friend, a former server and manager herself, was pretty livid. A manager eventually made it right by taking the roll off the bill, but this is really not how this should have gone down at all. We waited about an hour in total for something we were apparently never going to get, even though it was on the menu. Either staff should have been made aware that this roll was no longer being offered as advertised so that they could properly inform anyone who ordered it the first time, or the roll should have been made as advertised at the express request of the customer, given that they did have the ingredient on hand. Geez. For what it's worth, my menu had the same "defect," as did the menu posted in the front window. read more

First sushi place I've been to. Very impressed with the flavors and atmosphere. Service was great. read more

Yataimura Maru - Tokyo Ramen - Sushi Bars Near Me - Portland, Oregon

YUMMY RAMON! Love the decor, their ramon is probably the best I ever had in Portland area. Their raw fish are OK, but ramon is what you should go for. The place is awesome with Japanese style pub food. The idea is to share with the people in your table, drink and have a great time. They do take reservation, and sometimes they do get busy. Hot tea is free, and sometimes they have free sake tasting night. No pressure from the staff to actually purchase sake though, so don't worry! read more

Great ramen. Great sushi. Great service. Plus a killer happy hour - including "late night" happy hour - and it's adorable to boot. A perfect spot for a dinner date or to meet up with friends. I'm docking one star because on multiple visits any sushi I ordered came out long, long after the ramen, when before the ramen would have been preferred. read more

Being a person that operates on a later schedule than the "norm" I appreciate when a restaurant has late hours. This place is open till 10 m-th and 11 f-su. Their happy hour was pretty cheap but their portion sizes (at least for the ramen) was in direct correlation. I definitely had to try their bacon wrapped quail eggs and they were pretty much what you'd expect. If you don't like quail eggs, you probably won't like them. If you don't like bacon, we might not agree on what good food is :) No complaints on the service. read more

Yataimura Maru - Happy Hour Menu (5/17/13) - Sushi Bars Near Me - Portland, Oregon

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This place was pretty bad at staffing the front desk. We waited a long time to even speak to a person about getting a table and, after that, it took a while for the hostess to come back to us and bring us to a table that had been vacated long ago. That being said... The food was all quite good. This is why my review is one star instead of 0 (definitely not because the minimum number of stars on Yelp is 1... *cough*). I had the bacon-wrapped quail eggs, a couple skewers, and a bowl of the Nabeyakl Udon, a ramen served in a piping hot stone bowl. However, when a server (not our main server) brought my udon, he spilled it into my lap. It was literally still boiling at the sides because of the stone bowl, and he spilled it right into my lap. Jesus. The people around me reacted three times as fast as the server, who merely apologized a bit before wandering off. Good thing I was wearing my good denim; they tempered some of the heat at the expense of boiling out some of the dye. Later, when we told our main server that this had happened, he had heard nothing about it and his reaction was a lack luster "oh no, I'm really sorry that happened." No attempt to rectify this experience. Wonderful. It's unfortunate, really. This is the sort of place that, had the service not been so god awful, I would have come back to. read more

Food- pretty good. Service- to give it a grade would imply there was, indeed, service. First, swiped my mobile onto the floor. No damage, but nary a "hey, sorry bout that". Had to work hard to get waiters attention. Waited to be seated forever. NOT because there was a line, because it just took a while for them to get their shit together. For instance, "how long is sushi taking right now?" "oh... I don't knooooow. Did you want me to ask the sushi chef?" "um. no I guess I'll just figure it out myself" (Dexter-esque voiceover:he could confirm with the sushi chef, nothing conclusive so far) Dishes, as with many PDX places, came at wierd intervals, none of us has food at the same time, and dishes disappeared in the same vein. But the best was when server dumped boiling hot (not kidding, in a stone bowl, still boiling) soup in my friend's lap. IN his lap. And then didn't react, except to watch him writhe in pain. We used our napkins to clean up the table to avoid more skin searing, and when waiter returned to do some after the fact clean up, it didn't occur to him to bring more napkins. Which was funny. So I asked for some. And he brought one. ONE. for all of us to shred into parts to share, I suspect. When my friend gave up and asked to take the rest of his soup home, the waiter asked "is this container big enough" (dexter: "suspect seemed suspiciously underskilled for a 'waiter'. might more secrets be waiting under the surface?"). It was not. By a long shot. When the bill came, we were kinda surprised they hadn't done anything, and i mean ANYTHING.. not an apology, not a "whoops" not a "hey, lemme get you a drink", "need some ice for your BOILED GROIN?" or even a discount on his dish... so I said something to the waiter about it. He gave us a 10% coupon for a future visit. womp womp. But I took it, cause I'd order take out from here. But not visit. read more

the food is really great (tokyo ramen is superb). but the service, every single time, is sub-par. to top it all off, the last time we were there (feb 2019) it took 45 min to get our food. read more