Shalala

I heard it’s packed lunch time — we were lucky enough to get the last seats when we walked in.
I usually don’t like ramen but this place is an exception.
The broth here is thick and full of flavors. The noodle is prepared the way I like it — chewy.
I got the Shalala Ramen with spice level 3. It was honestly not spicy at all. Maybe ask for extra spice on the side.
Good place for ramen in mountain view!

Have been to this restaurant many times and really enjoyed their food — Spicy Miso Ramen and Deep fried boneless marinated chicken

Solid ramen noodles. Broth is good with lots of flavor. Lots of toppings included with the ramen and the chashu pork is good. They also have good side dishes like the chashu-​kimchi over rice.
Food is served fast and the service is good.

I got the Shalala Ramen with a mild level of spiciness.
The broth here is very, very thick! I felt like I needed to water it down. Because the broth was so thick, it felt like the ratio of broth to noodle seemed off. It felt like I had too much noodle! But, the broth was very, very flavorful. The soft-​boiled egg was, yes, soft-​boiled (yay)! The portion size was large and I took about a third of the ramen home. When I got home, I watered down the broth and it was perfect!
The service won’t seat you unless your whole party is there. It can get busy! I thought the service was okay. Nothing spectacular. Refilled our water when our cups were empty!
This is a tight space with poor lighting as you go farther inside. And the parking lot is small, so look for street parking!
Summary: This will hit the spot if you are craving ramen. But if you want REALLY good ramen, I would make the drive to Kontetsu or Orenchi!

Still didn’t like their ramen, but their rice plate is super tasty! I heard their rice plate is well known so I had to go back and try. One tip for everyone is to try finishing all the food, because togo box costs money.
Rice plate comparing with other ramen place, they are the best so far. Deep fried is clean, mash potato is good, portion is a little too much for average ladies.

I finally made it back and had easy parking this time, so plus one!
I also ordered the Niku again. Tasty, but not as memorable as last time. The minced pork just didn’t work for me. With nothing to chew through, it felt like seasoning. Finally, even after emptying half a container of togarashi into their spiciest offering, it was nothing. Tabasco is hotter. If I come back, I’ll smuggle in my own heat…

There’s probably a reason why Mt. View doesn’t have a lot of ramen places. There was a little bit of a wait when I came here on a Saturday afternoon, but it wasn’t too bad. Got seated and I ordered the Tonkotsu Ramen which is what they recommended. My initial reaction was that there was a ton of broth, which I typically love. I had to dig a little for the noodles and when I took a bite, I thought it was just okay. I liked how the broth was thick and creamy, and a plus that it wasn’t super salty. I was less than impressed with the toppings. some corn on the side, a piece of seaweed here and some scallions there… eh… the only thing that was good was the pork belly though I typically like it thinner and fattier.
Overall, I would drive a little further to Sunnyvale or San Jose. This place was just okay.

Review for Tsukemen Dipping Noodle
Broth: Great. It has deep tonkotsu flavor comparing to regular ramen. The only downside is that it is not hot enough.
Noodle: hard curly noodle.
Chashu: so so
Generally speaking, it’s authentic enough that I can call it real tsukemen, although they put too much negi on noodles which overwhelms the noodles themselves.
I think this is the only place you can have a good tsukemen in Mountain View.

In the beginning of this year came and they’ve changed the menu w/​low quality and the miso spicy paste dough was so weird, it didn’t pair well at all. Everything changed… Broth not right, ingredients taste like phở!
Chicken Kara-​age: really sucks
Taste: not traditional, not fusion, or Japanese
I see a lot of Vietnamese working girls & abc males were eating there, no wonder!
Servers are mostly, Abc & Vietnamese American young servers, no wonder…
Poor quality and taste!

Ordered the spiciest broth (level 3) for the number 1 ramen, and I highly recommend against it. The broth is the same, they just add extra hot sauce to it, making the once delicate broth very thick and salty. It was not even that spicy in all, so I would recommend getting the hot sauce on the side so you can dip your noodles in it and get a concentrated spiciness without altering the broth.
Other than that, the pork was good and the noodles were nice. I wish they could make their broth spicier without being so salty.

Did they change the management? The owner? The menu has changed from when I last came 6months ago. The ramen is not as tasty as it used to be and they don’t offer small bowl anymore. Small choices of menu and there is no lunch combo anymore :(

This review is for 3.5 stars.
There are several ramen shops in the downtown Mountain View area, and Shalala is tucked away on a side street about a block from the USPS, in a small corner shop. If you don’t look closely, you could totally miss it. Luckily, there are a couple of small lots in the area so I have not had too much difficulty with parking nearby.
The service is fairly quick here, so we were seated after waiting about 15 minutes on a Saturday afternoon. Once we were seated, the menu was pretty standard. Not the most comprehensive menu that I have ever seen, but definitely what you would expect. About five different ramen varieties, with different base flavoring and toppings, and the option to choose spice level.
The service was quick and kind. While they were hesitant to allow the chicken karaage order with half normal half spicy (my friend and I have very different tolerance levels for heat!), our waitress checked with the chef and promptly reassured that this could be done. It was much appreciated!
For my ramen, I went with the miso ramen mild. When my ramen arrived, I was pretty pleased with the flavor. The toppings were pretty standard and tasty. The only minor complaint I had was that the mild flavoring tasted more like regular/​non-​spicy. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed by throwing some of the tableside spicy paste into my soup. Best part, the soft boiled egg! I always judge ramen shop by the egg. Is your egg hard boiled? NOPE. A normal quail egg? NO THANKS! Flavorless soft boiled egg? I’LL PASS. But this one was just right! Soft custardy yolk with a flavorful sweet and savory egg white!
Generally good ramen, but again, not the best I’ve ever had considering the limiting options and toppings.

I eat too much ramen.
I came here again today and my experience was very different from what I wrote about a year ago.
I believe they changed their menu a bit, to make clearer what exactly you’re getting (thin vs thick noodles, exactly what kind of toppings /​broth). So I picked the thick noodles woo!
I ordered the Niku ramen today, which comes with everything (seaweed, corn, egg, green onion) + minced meat instead of chashu. It was nicely marinated and tasted kind of sweet, but once I mixed it all in with the soup, it kind of disappeared into the broth. :(I don’t drink all the broth, so I did not get to finish all my meat. The broth here is much thicker than I remember it to be. It doesn’t feel as drinkable as broth from other places. My Niku ramen also came with a TON of bean sprouts, as I dug for more noodles my spoon only came back with more beansprouts. Still, I did not finish my regular sized bowl of noodles. The bowl is larger than it seems.
Very small restaurant, hard to get seating for any party larger than 2.

I’ve been to Shalala twice already. Both times I felt a bit underwhelmed. I totally forgot to write a review the first time, but the second time I went, I realized that this place is just okay.
Their specialty is ramen. They have a few options for you, including the dipping ramen. I like my ramen spicy, so I opted to get the spicy miso ramen with spice level 2.
I’ve mentioned this before in other reviews, but the important components of ramen (for me) are 1) the broth 2) the noodles and 3) the meat. I don’t really eat the egg, so I can’t comment on that very much.
The noodles here are quite good. They’re a bit thicker than the other noodles I’ve had, though, so I’m not sure if this counts as authentic or not.
The broth here is very strange. It’s EXTREMELY flavorful, yes, but it’s also EXTREMELY thick. It’s so thick that if you let the broth sit for awhile, the top actually congeals very noticeably. I do like rich creamy soups but I don’t recall my soups actually congealing like this. I also thought that spice level 2 actually wasn’t too bad, so if you like spice, you should probably add for extra.
I actually forgot to eat the meat this time, but I remember from last time that it was just okay. I poked at it with my chopstick this time and it felt too thick and tough.
I also ate some edamame and some rice with ikura (salmon eggs). Those were fine.

Had heard about this place. And was never too sure where it was or how good it is. I’m a big fan of the surrounding restaurants that serve phở and ramen. And this place was quite the surprise. If you blink you will miss this inconspicuous location.
The fried chicken with black pepper is incred.
Ramen is legit.
Ill be back

Toripaitan
— easier on the sore throat
— get the ground pork rather than chashu — too fatty for me
— wifey lives the chashu
Sauce for calamari is hidden in the salad

Probably the best ramen in the whole Bay Area and very reasonable priced for the amount of food you get. I usually get the Toripaitan with tako wasabi and agedashi tofu, which is usually consistently the same yummy goodness.
The service is quick, good, and attentive. The wait to get in though can be a bit long during lunch or dinner time since they are so good! Wait times can be roughly 10 – 25 minutes so the smaller the group you are the quicker you’ll get in.
Really recommend this place to everyone who wants a great bowl of ramen.

Among the many ramen restaurants in the Bay Area, Shalala is in the middle of the pack. Average in this competitive market still makes for a satisfying meal though.
Spicy Chicken Karaage — Their kaarage was one of the better ones I’ve had. Super juicy and crispy even with the spicy sauce covering the chicken. The pieces are generously large, though I would have preferred more bite-​size.
Spicy Bamboo Shoot — A good simple side dish.
Toripaitan Ramen — Tori tonkotsu broth with thin noodles and chasu. The broth lacked depth and was on the lighter side. After adding plenty of garlic paste and hot sauce this was an enjoyable bowl. The chasu was average. Thin noodles were nicely al dente though I preferred their thick noodles.
Spicy Niku Moyashi Miso Ramen — Miso broth with minced pork. We added chasu to this as well. The broth had more dimension than the Toripaitan but also much more salty. I liked the chew and mouthfeel of the thick noodles. The egg was overdone for my taste.
The service was better than most ramen places. Our wait for two was under 30 minutes on a late Friday night.
Shalala hits the spot if you don’t want to drive to San Mateo or Santa Clara.

There are a lot of ramen places in Mountain View, and sadly there was nothing that made this place stand out more than all the rest. I got the Shalala Miso level 2 spicy. The broth was very thick and I removed about ¹⁄₃ of the spice. The noodles were a little hard for my liking and the egg was overcooked (the yolk wasn’t runny at all).
We also got the agedashi tofu. It was a pretty big portion, but there was too much white and green onion on top. We didn’t end up eating half of the onions.

Is there such a thing as too healthy tasting ramen? Because that’s what I tasted here. Ordered the toripaitan. The noodles were bland and the texture of the shredded scallions was chewy (I like crunchy or perfect soft, not somewhere in between).
My boyfriend ordered the spicy miso which was way too salty. He didn’t end up finishing his broth.
The one redeeming factor was the black and pepper karaage. Crispiness drenched in a sweet and savory sauce.
Great time to come would be lunch time since you can order lunch add ons for a discounted price.
I’m willing to give this place another try, but perhaps try another type of ramen.

Hervorragende Ramen mit sehr guter Brühe. Meine Frau und ich waren begeistert. Nudeln waren al dente. Kartenzahlung war auch möglich. Der Betreiber scheint übrigens echt Japaner zu sein.