Menya Ultra - Mira Mesa

QUICK TAKE// My personal favorite overall ramen establishment in San Diego. Rich broth with great variety of options. Love the sides as well. Take advantage of their yelp check in or else you'll be waiting for a while.FOOD// I love soup noodles. I also think the competition is really tough for ramen in San Diego - and Menya has consistently delivered with their flavorful broth coupled with variety of ramen addition options. I personally really like their NEGI MISO RAMEN and make sure to make it spicy. I sometimes add an extra order of PORK PAIKO when I am feeling extra hungry. I also love their NEGI PON FRIED CHICKEN - just so juicy and perfect with the mayo and green onion.SERVICE// Solid as you'd suspect at a smaller ramen establishment.VIBES// Standard clean dining area.ETC// Yelp Check in to avoid waiting in long lines!

I've been a patron of Menya Ultra since their original opening at the Clairemont Mesa Blvd location, and felt happy that their business grew to 3 locations. Though I never met Endo san the owner, I always appreciated the detail-oriented food prep, the Japan-exported quality ingredients, and the friendly yet speedy operation of the staff.This is why I am sad to write that the Mira Mesa restaurant has been a disappointing experience since its renovation. 1) Menu pricing: It has gone up while the previously generous ramen toppings have been cut down or eliminated. Spicy miso ramen was my go-to, but I could taste the difference of the richness of the old vs the new broths.Yes, inflation and employee wages have gone up. As someone who worked in the industry, I don't mind reasonably paying for more...but not at the expense of getting even less for what I paid for.2) Reactive and not proactive service staff: While they greet and bid goodbye upon your arrival, I had to wait 10 min for a glass of water, nor do they ever check up on you in case a refill is needed.3) New ordering system: the online ordering site lacks any picture of the items. They got rid of the order sheets and placed fewer printed menus on the tables. This makes it confusing when ordering, especially during this transition when old customers come in expecting the ramens to be the same as before. You also now have to pay along with the tip option immediately before the order is placed to the kitchen. I get that this is a more Japan operational system for a ramen shop for lower op cost, but it makes the server interaction even more minimal and feel like I'm at a get-in / get-out fast food joint. Upon seeing the minimal suggested 18% tip combined with the lesser service, I found it hard to justify on top of the menu up-pricing.Tl;dr, this used to be a 5/5 restaurant comparable to any great ramen shop you'd find in Fukuoka, Japan. It's now a 3.5/5 for me given the lower quality, higher price, and less attentive service. I hope the management takes note and improve soon. It's 7 pm on a Friday while half of the premise is empty.

I'll keep it short.Food - go to one of the other locations. I returned the chicken Karage twice because it was undercooked. Told them to remove it from the bill, but was still charged.Service - beyond getting a cup of water and being told to scan the qr code - non existent. Ambiance - was ok, the place was a mess with dirty tables everywhere. Came in around 2:30 pm, so maybe they were recovering from a lunch rush.Overall.... Never going here again

One of the best Tonkatsu Ramen places in San Diego! Food is really good. Servers are nice and quick. Restaurant atmosphere feels like a ramen shop.

My husband loves ramen and we came here to have lunch on a Sunday. It had a line but we joined waitlist so we didn't need to wait. The ramen itself is fine, I couldn't tell the difference between it and other restaurants. It's not bad, but not amazing either. The fried chicken is nice, pretty juicy. The dumplings are skinny, not my favorite. Overall, my husband enjoyed it.

Congratulations. Ranked 35th of the top 100 ramen locations in the us!!Gotta go back soon. Rakiraki didn't make the list!!

This has got to be the most underwhelming ramen spot in Mira Mesa, possibly all of San Diego. I've been here twice so I feel like now I can actually review. The portions are small. You better drink all the broth or you'll leave hungry. The broth is mid and could seriously use more flavor. I got the Tonkotsu Ajitama ramen which was one of their most popular options and left hungry/disappointed. I would say this ramen shop is still better than Isshido Ramen across the street but it is not even close to Nishiki or Raki Raki. Those are far superior ramen options in Mira Mesa.The ambience is decent with their new re-opening and the service is okay but the servers were pretty slow on the day I went considering it was a 5pm on a non-busy Monday. Nothing here went incredibly bad but I wouldn't rave about anything either. I got $5 off their ramen and I would say that even at that price, it was not worth it. I wouldn't come back unless I went with a group who really wanted to go here.

I arrived to an empty weekday ramen house all to myself for lunch and was helped immediately and given advice on their spice levels for the Spicy Miso. I recommend you get level 3 if you're a spice lord. It was amazing and absolute perfection and all I kept thinking about was how I wish there was an all you can eat spicy miso ramen option. I did also get a side order of Negipon Chicken it was delicious as well. The pay system is an interesting concept and it's easy to get through with the help of your server if you need that. Overall I loved the inside too they had cool skateboards on the wall and a nice mural. Go there and get some Ramen right now.

I don't go to Menya often, and each time I go I am reminded as to why that is the case.My friend and I were craving ramen, and decided to go to Menya since we had some gift cards available. In preparation of the long line that Menya typically has, we joined the Yelp waitlist ahead of time to minimize our waiting IRL, only to have our proposed time pushed back numerous times, to where we had to wait ~1.5 hours rather than 45 minutes. Maybe it was a busy day, so I didn't think much of it until we were seated, only to see that half of the tables were sitting empty for a long period of time.Not sure if Menya was understaffed at that specific time, but it appeared that there was an extremely low turnover rate that led to the increased wait times. Not the best sight, as there are other ramen joints in SD with high demand and quick service, which minimizes the wait times for the customer.Food was OK - I ordered the Tonkotsu Chashu, which was pretty standard. Good balance of richness and sodium, but didn't think that it had particularly stood out compared to other ramen restaurants.

Pretty good, solid spot but nothing mind blowing. Pretty good eats tho when ur hungry