Yummin’ Austin Ramen: Kome to Me

In the interest of being hungry fair in my assessment of Austin’s Ramen Offerings™, I’m trying places that don’t necessarily specialize in ONLY ramen.

So for my next foray in the Yummin’ Austin Ramen series, I checked out Kome Sushi Kitchen, located at 4917 Airport Boulevard.

Kome is mostly famous for their fresh, delicious, sushi. With the surge in ramen popularity, however, they opened up a ramen-only “sister” restaurant called Daruma this year (review forthcoming).

Kome has a full Japanese menu and three different kinds of ramen to choose from: Miso, Shoyu, and Tonkotsu.  Because Kome’s focus isn’t ramen, there isn’t a lot of advertised customizability. But they have all of the components available, so you just need to be knowledgeable going in, in order to craft your perfect ramen dish.

We started off our meal with tempura and edamame. I wouldn’t usually mention basic Japanese-type starters, but I will say that their edamame was uniquely good and fresh-tasting, and not weird or chewy or too salty.

The ramen looked very different from other places we’d been to. My ramen had all sorts of bamboo and spinach and leaves in it. And corn! It was sort of like ramen salad with soup hiding underneath.

It wasn’t bad. The elements inside were yummy. It also had these little fish medallions in it. I don’t know if they were the cause, but the whole dish ended up having a very fishy taste to it.

Now that I’ve been to several ramen places, I state with excitement that Kome ACTUALLY HAD TAKE-HOME CONTAINERS.

Later in the evening when I went to eat my leftovers, the problem was that they were impossibly fishy and I didn’t even want to eat them. I feel like maybe “yuckadoo” is a bit judgmental, but I neglected to take a picture of my sour face to show you my disappointment.

Kome doesn’t really need to have perfect ramen because they’re one of the most popular restaurants I’ve been to so far. By the time we left, there was a big line of people waiting to sit at our table and eat things.

Bottom line: Everyone loves Kome, but their ramen is nothing to write home about.

So how will Daruma, Kome’s ramen-only restaurant sister, fare? Stay tuned for the next installment of Yummin’ Austin Ramen!

 

@amalthya asks:

What has been your Kome experience?