Alternative Name: りょう
Rating: 3/5
Address
84 Brewer Street,
London,
W1F 9UB
Type of Place:
Cheap (for Soho!) ramen bar with very few pretensions. Convenient. Not even a tiny bit luxurious.
It is a good place to get the free Japanese newspapers.
Food:
Ramen is OK. The basics are covered -- you have your kimuchi (or kimchi as one might say) ramen, your chashuumen, your gyoza, and so on. Ingedients are the cheapest -- they used to try a bit harder but these days they seem to focus on economy.
Definitely, stick to ramen and gyoza. The token alternative dishes are mostly horrible. They're authentic, though -- awful MSG-drenched Chinesey yakisoba is disgusting at Ryo in EXACTLY the same way it would be disgusting in a bad cafe in Tokyo.
I don't think the food is that bad. But it is like food for students, not restaurant food.
Atmosphere:
It's cramped and the music is awful but the corner tables aren't too bad since at least nobody's walking past you.
Service:
Unhelpful, awkward Japanese students. This is only a ramen bar though so it doesn't matter.
Unique Point:
Ryo has an upstairs which contains London's tiniest and in a weird way coolest Japanese bar! Live DJs when you're lucky, and by DJs I mean gawky unemployable students in wooly beanies -- you KNOW the type! Bizarre. And cool.
If that is your idea of cool, I think something may be wrong with you. The corridor between the bar and the toilets sells T-shirts. I don't know if anyone buys them.